After arriving in Salt Lake City in 1860, the family benefitted from the Church's program of public works and Brigham Young's preference for sailors who were familiar with ropes, pulleys, and working on high levels. George earned enough working as a plasterer on the Salt Lake Theater to buy a "steady yoke of oxen" (Arrington 212), which would soon come in handy.

When Brigham Young asked for volunteers to settle southern Utah to raise cotton, George Frederick's father volunteered, somewhat to mother Ann's dismay because she didn't want to leave their comfortable cottage in Salt Lake City. But she supported her husband in this and they resettled to the hot, barren red sand desert of St. George, so unlike the green and rainy England they had known. George Frederick grew up there to young manhood, helping to dig irrigation systems, working as a farmer and a teamster.

While engaged as a teamster, he had an accident and was saved only by what he felt was divine intervention. While hauling large rocks to fill for a road on the black ridge west of town, (now the site of St. George's most prestigious homes and a country club) he backed his team of mules to the edge of the road to unload the rocks. He set the wagon's brake, but something frightened the mules and they bolted, overturning the wagon and dumping George Frederick and the whole load of rocks down the hill. His future wife Eleanor described what happened next: "It appeared that death was inevitable, as the rocks were falling all around him, but he said a voice said in his ear ‘Your garments will save you.' He said it seemed that rocks would almost reach him and then either turn to one side or leap over his head, and he was not touched by any of them, and all who beheld it felt that it was a miraculous escape" (Eleanor W. Jarvis, no date)

In 1872, at age 25, George Frederick and his 18 year-old fiancé Eleanor Cannon Woodbury made the week-long trek to Salt Lake City to be married in the Endowment House in Salt Lake City by D.H. Wells. Returning to St. George, they set up housekeeping in a rented cottage with a borrowed stove and the barest minimum of second-hand and homemade household furniture while they built their own adobe home little by little.

In addition to working as a teamster, George Frederick, like his father, learned to plaster and worked at that trade for many years, helping to plaster the St. George Tabernacle, the Temple, and many houses in the city and in surrounding towns. While working on a high scaffold plastering the temple one day, he seemed to hear a compelling voice say, "George, get off that plank!" It was repeated, so he stepped to the side. A few minutes later another plasterer jumped a few feet onto the spot where George F. had been standing. The plank broke and the man plunged through scaffolding and braces clear to the ground. Miraculously, the man lived and was back at work in a week. (O. W. Jarvis, 1934).

George Frederick and Eleanor did not have the best of health but were blessed with eight children. During a diphtheria epidemic in 1881 most of their children fell very ill and their eldest son George Frederick, Junior, died at age five. The other seven lived to adulthood, a remarkable achievement in a day of primitive and scarce medical care. The surviving children, who all married in LDS temples, were Eleanor Woodbury Jarvis (who married Edwin Dee Seegmiller), Orin Woodbury Jarvis (my grandfather, who married Alice Anna Young), Clarence Sylvester Jarvis (who married Clara Jean Holbrook), Anna Catherine Jarvis (who married William Frederick Ward), Frank Woodbury Jarvis (who married Mary Burgess), John Taylor Jarvis (who married Rose Edith Lee), and Rose May Jarvis, who married Ezra Cottam Thompson.

In those days the Word of Wisdom was not as firmly fixed in Church teachings as it is now. In September of 1871, a year before George Frederick was married in the St. George Temple, some trouble arose with local Indians and he was called to serve guard duty for six long, cold weeks near Pipe Springs in snow up to his knees. He was so cold and miserable that he gave in to a fellow guard's suggestion to chew some tobacco. Thus began a long habit of using tobacco, which George Frederick was unable to break until after my grandfather Orin was born. Grandpa later wrote the following of his father George Frederick:

. . . one summer evening he and mother were sitting by the open window of our old home after supper, with our brother George playing on the floor and me, a babe on Mother's knee. When Mother asked him how he expected to train us boys, and what kind of men he wanted us to be, he outlined to her his hopes for us, and she asked, "Will you want them to use tobacco?" He replied "Of course not, it is a filthy habit." [He said] he would tell us what a bad habit it was and that the Lord had declared against it. She asked, "But George, which will they believe most, your actions or your words?" He replied, "You're right Nellie, I've got to quit it, and I'm through." He then took the cigaret from his mouth and threw it along with his sack of Bull Durham and a part of a plug of chewing tobacco from his pocket, right out the window into the potato patch and he never again tasted of either.

Mother later told me [that]. . .father was quite nervous after going to bed that night (not having had his after-supper smoke) and when he thought her asleep he quietly got out of bed and went out of doors. She then also arose and went to the window where she saw him (by the aid of the moonlight) on his hands and knees, crawling up and down those potato rows searching for the tobacco until he found them. Then she called him telling she was jealous, that he had never been on his knees to her as he had been to "Lady Nicotine." He replied that he had got to worrying, after going to bed without his goodnight smoke, remembering stories he had heard of people losing their minds when they wanted tobacco very badly and could not get it, and he wanted to be able to tell himself he could smoke or chew if he wanted to but that he was man enough to defy it and to quit it cold. He therefore put that tobacco on the mantle, beside our eight-day clock, where it was kept for several years (as I can well remember) and where he could shake his fist at it and give it a cold shoulder whenever temptation arose (O. W. Jarvis 1941).

It would be unfair, however, to leave the impression that George F. remained indifferent concerning the Word of Wisdom. My grandfather Orin told of being led by his father away from a local Fourth of July celebration to go behind a drugstore and view a drunken, unconscious man covered with flies and vomit. George F. told Orin the history of this man, who as a boy had been much brighter than average and ambitious, but had started smoking and drinking to impress the older boys. George F. then admitted his own bouts with alcohol and tobacco and extracted a promise from Orin to rely on his father's bitter experience and at least refrain from trying either until he was at least 21 years old (O.W. Jarvis 1941).

This was the time in the Church's history when plural marriage was practiced in the Church but persecuted by the US federal government. In 1877, only five years after his first marriage, George Frederick, with Eleanor's full consent, married a twenty-year-old woman named Rosenia Sylvester. They never had any children, but "Rosy" qualified herself to work as a school teacher, helped to educate George and Eleanor's children, wrote regularly to George on his mission to England, sent him money, and faithfully nursed Eleanor, who suffered many years of ill health. George F. claimed that he never heard a cross word between the Eleanor and Rosinia, and that the children adored "Rosy" (O.W.Jarvis, no date). George and Eleanor named their youngest daughter Rose, apparently in Rosenia's honor. Eleven years after marrying Rosenia, because of a Federal campaign to arrest polygamist men, George F. was obliged to spend much of his time away from home, hiding to avoid arrest by officials.

Early in 1888, when George F. was 40 years old, he was saved from a fugitive's existence by a mission call to central England where he had grown up, where he had many relatives, and where Wilford Woodruff had served many years earlier. His daily mission journal reads like a ship's log, listing after each date his location and then a brief note on the day's activities. His missionary work differed from that of most contemporary LDS missionaries: it involved frequent travel, often of 20-30 miles on foot per day and sleeping in a different place almost every night. They did not preach door to door, but often visited active and inactive members, handed out tracts or preached on the streets, and spent evenings teaching and singing with investigators or relatives. He occasionally ran into organized opposition, but met it boldly, often asking local police officers for assistance. On 27 October 1888 he recorded the following about persecutors:

On our way to take Parry Bus Tram to the old Square, we found that Barnsfield and others had left Worcester today and joined some others of Jarman's crowd and were holding a meeting on the street. We listened for a time to their lies. When Barnsfield recognized me he gave out that a Mormon missionary was there, at the same time challenging me to discuss with him. I told him that I did not want to do so, when the crowd called so loud for me that I went up onto the box and said, "Gentlemen, what you have been listening to from these men is false, they are lies. If such wholesale murders are permitted in Utah it is a shame and a disgrace to the United States Government. Utah is a dependency to the USA as much so as Canada is to England. The Governor, Marshall, and judges and other officers are appointed by the President and soldiers are there to help them. I am a freeborn Englishman and have lived there for a great many years. I know what these men have told you is false, false as Hell." I then left them, altho they tried to stop me.

George Frederick had served as a juror on the first John D. Lee trial, so he knew all about the tragedy at Mountain Meadows, of Lee's conviction for it, and of the influence of the US government in Utah affairs.

In September of 1891 or 92 George F. was summoned to Beaver to stand trial for unlawful co-habitation, legal jargon for practicing polygamy. The lawyer assigned to defend him was on a drunken spree, so George F. had to speak for himself. He explained that he had married Rosenia when it was legal but that when polygamy was ruled illegal by the supreme court, he had provided a separate home for her, although during his mission she had moved back into the home to care for his first wife, Eleanor,

. . . and during my absence my place as protector and provider for my sick wife and her little ones had been filled by this other noble woman whom I married with the full consent of my first wife. . . .Never have I known of a cross word between the real and the foster mother. She had done as much for my children as any mother could, and in return has received a mother's love. On my return she again took up her lonely abode, that we might show in truth that our religion teaches to honor, obey and sustain the laws of the land. This was doubly hard at the time, for the mother of my children had been bedfast many months, and for several weeks her life was despaired of. Together and in turns we watched beside the sick bed day and night, and when finally the mother's health returned, my strength gave way, and for months this noble pair nursed me night and day. This palsied hand is the remnant of that illness, but rather than forsake the wife so true to me I'd willingly lose my other hand. Yes, Judge, she was and is my wife, beloved by me and mine. If renouncing her is the price of keeping me from jail, I am ready to be sentenced. But first remember that we both respect the law and for the past four years have wrung our hearts to live it (O.W.Jarvis no date).

When George F. ended his appeal, there was not a dry eye in the courtroom. The judge, also touched, announced that he had intended to jail the defendant or levy a large fine plus court costs, but was willing to reduce it. A merchant, Richard Morris, corroborated George Frederick's testimony, said that the defendant couldn't possibly pay even the lower fine and that jail would kill him, but he offered to pay $50 for him and did so. The judge accepted it and George F. was released. He later received that amount in witness fees for testifying at a later trial. (Eleanor Jarvis, no date).

Could this be the same Richard Morris who let George Frederick ride in his wagon on the Great Plains when George was a thirteen-year-old boy with sore feet? In any case, we sense the enormous importance of community in our heritage and how the goodness is passed at critical moments not only from parent to child, but also from caring friends.

George Frederick and Eleanor Woodbury Jarvis cared deeply for their children despite years of ill health. Eleanor was an invalid during much of George F's mission and he was called home because she was very ill. After George arrived home, Eleanor told how she

. . .was healed in a miraculous manner, being taken to the Temple in a wheel chair, carried into the font and baptized for her health after which she walked out and dressed herself, the first time she had been able to dress without assistance for six months (E.W.Jarvis 5).

On his mission, George F. had suffered sick headaches and kidney ailments (G.F. Jarvis 20 March, 28 March, 24 July, 31 July, August 1989). After returning home to nurse Eleanor and witnessing her recovery, he fell deathly ill and never completely recovered from what a local physician diagnosed as diabetes and leakage of the heart. Eleanor said that he also suffered for years from severe rheumatism and that in his old age his right arm was very painful and "palsied." When everyone feared he would die and his children gathered back to St. George to bid him farewell, the ward held a fast meeting for him and he rallied to live and farm another twelve years, finally passing away on 1 January 1919 at age 72.

George F. Jarvis served in the bishopric of his ward, in numerous church callings, and, for several months preceding his death, as a patriarch. He and Eleanor were never rich, experienced at least their share of sickness and trials, but seem to have held true to their beliefs, to have been loved by friends and family, and to have set us an example of how good people should live. In short, they appear to have been latter-day saints.

SOURCES

Arrington, Leonard J. Great Basin Kingdom: Economic History of the Latter-day Saints 1830-1900. Lincoln, Nebraska: University of Nebraska Press, 1958.

Jarvis, Eleanor Woodbury. "George Frederick Jarvis." ten-page biography. Copy in author's possession.

Jarvis, George F. "Diary of George F. Jarvis while on Mission to Great Britain in 1888-1890." Copy in author's possession.

Jarvis, Orin Woodbury. "An Effective Appeal." Apparently from a letter with no date. Copy in author's possession.

Jarvis, Orin Woodbury. Letter 12 June 1941. Copy in possession of the author.