Willard Whipple

1858 - 1941  (83 years)  Submit Photo / Document    Has 86 ancestors and more than 100 descendants in this family tree.

• Name	Willard Whipple
  Birth	16 Mar 1858	Provo, Utah, Utah, United States
  Gender	Male
  Initiatory (LDS)	16 Sep 1897	MANTI
  FamilySearch ID	KWZX-VN2
  Death	5 Apr 1941	Show Low, Navajo, Arizona, United States
  Burial	7 Apr 1941	Show Low Cemetery, Navajo, Arizona, United States
  Person ID	I50409	mytree
  Last Modified	25 Feb 2024

  
  

  Father	Edson Whipple,   b. 5 Feb 1805, Dummerston, Windham, Vermont, United States d. 11 May 1894, Colonia Juárez, Casas Grandes, Chihuahua, México (Age 89 years)
  Mother	Harriet Yeager,   b. 15 Jul 1826, Greenwich Township, Cumberland, New Jersey, United States d. 3 Jul 1901, Thatcher, Graham, Arizona, United States (Age 74 years)
  Marriage	4 Nov 1850	Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah, United States
  Family ID	F13721	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  
  

  Family	Emma Melissa Oliver,   b. 21 Sep 1867, Payson, Utah, Utah, United States d. 29 Aug 1948, Show Low, Navajo, Arizona, United States (Age 80 years)
  Marriage	23 Sep 1884	Adair, Navajo, Arizona, United States
  Children	1. Joseph Whipple,   b. 29 Aug 1885, Adair, Navajo, Arizona, United States d. 29 Aug 1885 (Age 0 years) + 2. Lydia Emma Whipple,   b. 16 Feb 1887, Adair, Navajo, Arizona, United States d. 26 Oct 1977, Logan, Cache, Utah, United States (Age 90 years) + 3. Willard Whipple, Jr,   b. 15 Aug 1888, Show Low, Navajo, Arizona, United States d. 20 Dec 1949, Sacaton, Pinal, Arizona, United States (Age 61 years) + 4. Harriet Whipple,   b. 23 Mar 1890, Show Low, Navajo, Arizona, United States d. 24 Mar 1956, Mesa, Maricopa, Arizona, United States (Age 66 years) + 5. Nancy Whipple,   b. 3 Jun 1892, Show Low, Navajo, Arizona, United States d. 16 Mar 1971, Show Low, Navajo, Arizona, United States (Age 78 years)   6. Laura Walrade Whipple,   b. 31 May 1895, Adair, Navajo, Arizona, United States d. 7 Jun 1897, Show Low, Navajo, Arizona, United States (Age 2 years)   7. Oliver Whipple,   b. 22 Jan 1898, Adair, Navajo, Arizona, United States d. 30 Jan 1898 (Age 0 years) + 8. Alzada Whipple,   b. 5 Apr 1899, Show Low, Navajo, Arizona, United States d. 29 Sep 1986, Winslow, Navajo, Arizona, United States (Age 87 years)   9. Anne Julia Whipple,   b. 31 Jan 1902, Show Low, Navajo, Arizona, United States d. 11 Dec 1974 (Age 72 years)   10. Orson Temple Whipple,   b. 19 May 1904, Show Low, Navajo, Arizona, United States d. 25 Aug 1964, Show Low, Navajo, Arizona, United States (Age 60 years) + 11. Charles Chester Whipple,   b. 16 Oct 1906, Show Low, Navajo, Arizona, United States d. 12 Jul 1995, Show Low, Navajo, Arizona, United States (Age 88 years) + 12. Howard Eugene Whipple,   b. 5 Jan 1909, Show Low, Navajo, Arizona, United States d. 5 Sep 1964 (Age 55 years) + 13. Milton Lloyd Whipple,   b. 15 Jun 1911, Show Low, Navajo, Arizona, United States d. 7 Mar 1987, Mesa, Maricopa, Arizona, United States (Age 75 years) + 14. Melvin Floyd Whipple,   b. 15 Jun 1911, Show Low, Navajo, Arizona, United States d. 28 Jun 1977, Show Low, Navajo, Arizona, United States (Age 66 years)
  Family ID	F18766	Group Sheet  |  Family Chart
  Last Modified	3 Sep 2024

  
  

• Event Map

  Birth - 16 Mar 1858 - Provo, Utah, Utah, United States Marriage - 23 Sep 1884 - Adair, Navajo, Arizona, United States Initiatory (LDS) - 16 Sep 1897 - MANTI Death - 5 Apr 1941 - Show Low, Navajo, Arizona, United States Burial - 7 Apr 1941 - Show Low Cemetery, Navajo, Arizona, United States  = Link to Google Earth

  
  

• Notes

  AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF WILLARD WHIPPLE I, Willard Whipple, was born at Provo, Utah, the 16th of March, 1858, t h e son of Edson and Harriet Yeager Whipple. My father was born at Dummer st on, Windham County, Vermont, on the 5th of February 1805. He was the s o n of John and Basmuth Hutchens Whipple who were descendents of early se tt lers in New England. My mother was born in Gloucester County, New Jersey, near to Philadelphi a , Penn. She was born 15 July, 1826, the daughter of John and Ann Hyat t Ye ager who were descendants of the early Dutch settlers in Pennsylvani a . I first saw the light of day in a large two story adobe house in the nor t hwest room or entry, on the ground floor which mother used as a bedroo m . The house was situated on the south west corner of the first block so ut h of the City Park which was called the West City Square during my res ide nce in Provo. Since, it has been made into a beautiful park called Pi onee r Park. My first recollections are of playing on the streets of Prov o wit h the neighbor children and of going to the fields with my older si ster t o gather wild flowers and pick ground cherries . I always liked to fish and I got my first fishing thrill when my mothe r b ent a pin for a fishing hook and tied it to a piece of thread for a l in e and a willow stick for a pole. I baited the hook with a grub worm th a t I dug out of our woodpile. I sat down on the bank of the stream with my bare feet hangi n g into the water and cast the pin into the stream. In a few minutes I hooked a sucker about twelve o r f ourteen inches long and pulled him out. I jumped up and ran home as fast as I could to show my mother . When I got older we would go down to the lake and skate all day long i n t he winter time. Sometimes skating fifteen miles across the lake and b ack . As a barefooted boy I raked hay with a hand rake until I was so tir ed t hat I could hardly walk out of the field. The grain was cut with cra dle s and raked and bound by hand. This was before railroad times in Utah. All of our imports had to be hauled nearly two thousand miles acro s s the plains by ox team. Dry goods and groceries were very high. Calic o w as fifty cents a yard, sugar fifty cents a pound and other things i n prop ortion. Most of our shoes were made by local shoemakers from leath er tann ed by our local tanners. All of our stocking were made fro m wool grown, corded, spun and knitted at home. Much of our clothing was p r ovided the same way, woven on hand looms . I had a narrow escape when 1 was but a lad. Canby Scott and I were herdi n g cows when George Thatcher came running into the field and wanted u s t o hurry over to see the new thresher. We were excited as boys alway s wer e when the thresher came to town. We ran through the fields, forget ting a ll about the cows. Now it happened that my mother had always warne d me t o keep away from a thresher, for she had dreamed once when I was j ust a b aby that I was seriously hurt in one of them . "Now, come here, fellows," said George. "I want to show you somethin g o n the other side." So we started to scoot acros s the tumbling rod that ran from the power unit to the machine. I had a bu t ton off of my cuff and as I stepped over the rod , my sleeve caught on the rod. As quick as lightning, I was pulled over a n d around the rod. Luckily my clothes gave way, o r I would have been killed or hurt seriously. As it was I was left naked e x cept for my worn home made straw hat. The rest o f my clothes were wrapped around the tumbling rod in ribbons. The men stop p ed the machine, took the rags from the rod an d made me a breach cloth and we went back to our herding . The school terms were usually three months long. Our studies consiste d o f reading, writing, and arithmetic with a littlegeography. When I wa s old er, I attended the Brigham Young Academy for awhile with Karl G. Ma eser a s a teacher. I was now past twenty years old and according to law and custom I was o l d enough to go out on my own and assum e the responsibility of making a living for myself. Farm products were ha r d to sell for cash. Flour was selling for $1.50 pe r hundred, oats 75¢ per hundred, apples 25¢ a bushel, potatoes 25¢ a bush e l and other products in proportion. Father decide d to let me take a load of apples and oats and go into Nevada to the mini n g towns and sell the produce and then stay out ther e if I could get a job. We left 'Provo about the 15th of September 1878 . W e got jobs hauling and cutting cord wood for the mine mills . On December 2, 1880 I left camp alone with my horse, mule and a dog. I c o vered approximately 700 miles, riding about an averag e of 35 miles a day and arrived in Provo on the 19th. I found my parents h a d sold their home and property and gone to Arizona , leaving on the 8 Oct. 1880. I worked around Provo until 13 May 1882 an d d ecided to follow my parents to Arizona . At Lee's Backbone, we were following a narrow winding track, the surfa c e of which was at times steep, slick, and almost impassible . It was hardly wide enough in places for a knife blade to wedge between t h e solid rock and the wagon hubs. Several times we ha d to unload the sacks of seed and grain because of the steep pitch where t h e mules could not get foot hold on the round slick rocks . Then we had the task of carrying the bags up the pitch and reloading the m . We had to repeat this ordeal many times before the summi t was reached. The descent was quite as dangerous. We had to chain all fo u r wheels many times. Even then the wagon would run int o the heels of the mules, exciting them and increasing the danger. Often w a gon, mules, and all would jog down over the banks o f rocks four or five feet at a time. Water was the greatest problem. We ar r ived at Adair, Arizona, where our parents had settled on the 9 July 188 2. Their little fort was used as a public building for many years. In thi s b uilding, the first organization of the Showlow Ward wa s made 13 May 1884 with Hans Hansen Sr. as Bishop, William Ellsworth as 1 s t counselor and Willard Whipple as second counselor. Ther e were 135 members of this ward in September of 1884 . On the 23 Sept 1884 I was married to Emma Melissa Oliver by William Ells w orth, Justice of the Peace.. We were married at Emma's home.That nigh t w e moved into our own home, a two roomed lumber house that 1 had buil t dur ing the summer. Next morning we left to go t o Woodruff to buy our housekeeping equipment and furniture. The A.C.M.I. s t ore was in Woodruff at that time. We bought a ne w stove which cost 36 dollars, a bedstead and six chairs, a wash tub, cook i ng utensils and dishes, and a small supply of provisions . Charles Jarvis, the clerk at the store congratulated us on being abl e t o pay cash for our goods. We lived in this lumber hous e for about a year and a half. We had to carry water up the cliffs in buck e ts for doing the laundry. While living here our firs t child wad born Saturday, August 29, 1885 and he died the same day abou t o ne o'clock in the morning. We called him Joseph . On February 16, 1886 we moved to our homestead about three miles south a n d west of the Whipple ranch. 1 had built a one roo m log cabin in a clearing in the timber on the homestead and had begun t o f ence the land. All water for household purposes wa s hauled in wooden barrels by team and wagon, from the river which was abo u t two miles away.. At first all the animals had to b e driven to the river for water. A little later 1 dug by hand a well thirt y -five feet deep, which helped with water for the stock, but was too hard for household purposes. Sometimes it would go dry during dry s e asons of the year. In 1888 Willard began keeping a daily journal. It depicts the hard wor k a nd ingenuity it took to wrest a living from th e surroundings of those days. It also gives the names of the settlers wh o l ived in the area, shows how the humble homes were hospitabl e to neighbors and passersby. It shows their faithfulness in attending t o t heir church duties, how simple pleasures were shared and ho w people responded with love and sympathy in times of sickness and death . Adair at that time was a part of Apache County, with St. Johns as the co u nty seat. It was necessary to travel there to pay taxe s or settle legal problems. The Indians were still not considered too frie n dly. They would occasionally drive off cattle or horses , and also might kill a beef. Sometimes they wandered into the homes. The i r daughter Lydia tells the following incident which happene d in 1887: "Father and mother were living on our homestead, and this autumn afterno o n she had taken me, a baby of six months or so , and had gone over the hill to visit her mother. Father was down in the c o rn-crib, which was between two other buildings , shucking corn when he heard a gunshot. He stepped out from behind the bu i ldings in time to see an Indian leaving the hous e with a gun. Father started toward him. The Indian fired another shot a n d then motioned for father to go back. Father kept walkin g towards him, but the Indian fired another shot and again motioned for fa t her to go back. So he thought it best to obe y and stepped back between the buildings. The Indian then took the gun a n d crept along the fence until he reached his horse whic h was tied on the hill, mounted and rode away . As soon as the Indian was gone, Father went to the field and caught hi s h orse and went for his brother-in-law, Will, and his brother, Edson. T he y traced the Indian until dark and then returned home. The Indian tol d hi s friends in camp that night that he had traded his horse for the gu n, bu t the next morning they discovered that he had both the gun and th e horse . They knew he had stolen the gun, for they had all been a t father's a few days before and had tried to buy the gun and he had refus e d to sell it. In a few days a couple of the young Indians brought the g u n back to father and apologized for the misdeed. One of the young India n s was Alchesay, who later became chief of the Apache Tribe. He was the i r chief until he died in about 1952 and he was respected by the white p eo ple as well as the Indians." During the year 1888, Willard tore down some of the buildings on the Whi p ple Ranch and used the material to add two more rooms to hi s one room log cabin and other buildings . Willard was a school trustee, a Justice of the Peace, 29 Dec 1894, freig h ted with a 6-horse team, sheep herding after he bought sheep , was on the Irrigation Board, ran a general merchandise store, raised mar e s and blooded stallions (a Clydesdale called Prince and on e called Tobe) and was a counselor in the Bishopric for thirty-four year s , serving under two bishops. Willard and Emma decided in 1897 that they wanted to go to Utah and be s e aled in the Temple. Accordingly, on the 4 Aug 1897 the y left horne in a double bed wagon. The wagon had a good canvas cover a n d a chuck box on the back that had a lid to make a table to us e in preparing meals. They had a four horse team pull the wagon . Lydia says,"The food tasted so good on the trip. Father did most of th e c ooking over the fire, and food has never in my life taste d so good as that. There were baking powder biscuits, and dutch oven potat o es seasoned with home grown pork and onions, goo d gravy that was super. We bought butter and cheese and fruit along the w a y from the farms we passed. After we had been on th e road for twenty-seven days, we reached Aurora, Utah and visited there f o r several days with our relatives. We also visited i n Salina and Mr. Pleasant. Father went on the train to Provo and visited h i s relatives and friends while the rest of us staye d in Mr. Pleasant with Mother's sister Lucinda. When Father return­ed we v i sited in Fairview, had a family picture made and on th e 15 Sep. began the journey home. We drove as far as Manti and were seal e d in the Temple. Mother made white dresses for the girl s and herself. We got home on the 23 October . " In Nov 1903, Willard.moved his family to Showlow. There was a good lumb e r building on it. Four large rooms, built in a row wit h a porch running the full length of the front, painted a dark red outside a n d lath and plaster on the inside comprised their new home . No barns or sheds. Lydia says," We hauled water from the ditch that w a s a couple of blocks or so north east of us at the foot o f the rise. We children each had our turn of guiding Old Nig and the liza r d to the ditch many times a week, and filling the barre l with water and bringing it back to the house. Though this was an improve m ent over what it had been at the ranch, it got monotonou s to fetch so many turns. Mother made a flower garden now that she had acc e ss to more water." Bishop Owens decided to donate one room of his large red hay barn to b e r emodeled and used as a church, a school, and a communit y gathering place, 1904-5. Lydia says, "You could hear the horses in the s t able at the back end of the building munching hay, an d the barnyard smell permeated the air of the room where we met. Sometim e s the singing of the hens about drowned out the singin g of our voices." In 1932 Willard built a new five room house just south of the old hous e . They fixed a pump and piped water into the hous e and had hot water and a kitchen sink and a bathroom for the first tim e i n their lives. Soon electricity was brought in also . Sep 23, 1934 they celebrated their Golden Wedding Anniversary. All of th e ir children and grandchildren were there and Willard' s brothers Brigham, Edson, and Hyrum and many of their friends . It was held in the church-house. When Willard was eighty years old he still did many chores, and loved ca r ing for the beautiful flowers he had planted in hi s yard. He was to the very last a member of the irrigation board and al s o a very interested citizen and participant in the othe r affairs of the community. The last few years of his life, he and Emma spent the winters in Mesa wo r king in the Temple and visiting-relatives. In 193 6 Willard had two cancers of his face treated in Phoenix. They predicte d h e would not live a year. However, he lived fiv e years and did not die from the cancers, but suddenly on 5 Apr 1941 . (Taken from his daily diary published by his daughter s Lydia Hansen and Alzada Stratton.)