Harrison Plummer Tippets
Today we honor Harrison Plummer Tippets - the oldest living member of our original Latter-day Saint family.
Harrison's only brother was Joseph William - these brothers were named for their two Grandfathers. Each of these Grandfathers had only one brother: Joseph Harrison Tippet's brother was Alvah; William Plummer's brother was John. These four "original Mormons" each had a special part in the restoration of the Gospel.
Harrison Plummer Tippets was born to Joseph Mahonri and Alice Jeanette. Both of them were born in the Center Stake of Zion. They lived through "The Missouri Persecutions," and "The Nauvoo Period," and "Crossing the Plains." Their exciting life stories are being written, to share with you at some future time.
Harrison Plummer Tippets was born in the city named for Brigham Young, the 16th of October 1868 (when the Great Tabernacle was dedicated). He was baptized and confirmed a member of the Church when he was 8 1/2 years old, and that very summer President Young came on his last visit to Brigham City. As the conference caravan entered the city, hundreds of Sunday School children lined the Main Street to sing and cheer and wave their home-grown silk banners of "Welcome." Harrison was one of them, and when the meeting was out, they filed by the stand to shake hands with Brother Brigham. He too, looked into the smiling blue eyes and heard the kindly voice saying, over and over, "God Bless YOU."
His Priesthood came through Oliver Cowdery, who ordained Brigham Young, Heber J. Grant and Harrison P. Tippets. He has served in the Presidency of all Quorums, from Deacon to High Priest. He has known all the Presidents of the Church but the Prophet Joseph, and has had close relationships with Presidents Joseph F. Smith, Heber J. Grant and George Albert Smith.
Harrison Plummer Tippets is the youngest child of four, yet these same four average an even dozen children apiece! Brother Joey married Ellen Rosenbaum and thereby brought into the family some "original" blood of Israel. Sisters Alice and Mary married the Sorensen brothers and so grafted onto the family tree "The Purest Blood," from the Oldest Kingdom on the earth today. Harrison, himself, married Emma Hunter VanOrman, and thus bestowed upon his own: The rich heritage of New England's 400 historic years, and Old England's 2000 years, including Mother Scotland, and Holland as well. They were married in the Logan Temple in 1889, on Joseph Mahonri's birthday, September 25th. Theirs was a whirlwind courtship, a love-at-first-sight match, with a lived-happily-ever-after ending. Their honeymoon was with the String of covered wagons, (which came yearly from Bear Lake Valley to Brigham City for a year's supply of fruit). The going wasn't so difficult. But the coming home was something else, again! The wagons were filled to the covered bows with fruit, the roads were rough, the dugways were terrible, and it took two nights camping out in the canyons. The nights were cold - everybody slept with their clothes on, in a big company bed on the ground beside the fire. The fire was kept burning to keep the bears away. Usually there were children to put in the center and there was always a lot of gassing about it, but this time the bride and groom had the center and took all the ribbing.
Harrison and Emmy became a kind of symbol to youth. The family had kind of a United Order, like the one they had helped Lorenzo Snow set up in Brigham (before they moved to Spring Creek, 3 miles from Georgetown). A family could get together and build a house in a day or two. One large room of logs with a dirt roof, a crude porch and shanty, and then beautification set in. The ceiling was factory covered. The walls white washed. There was a looking glass, what-not shelves, held up with empty spools strung on a string, and old horseshoes painted with gold. A spray of forget-me-nots hung on each side of the mirror by blue satin ribbons, or wall-pockets of old slippers, filled with colored crepe paper flowers, and pin cushions, etc.
One-half of the floor was covered with colorful rag carpet. The homemade lamp stand and table had tidies on them, the ladder-back chairs had crazy-patch cushions, and there was a fancy backrest on the rocking chair. The homemade bed with rope springs had a straw-filled tick and feather bed and pillows with feathers from the farm fowls, a homemade pad, linsey sheets, patchwork quilts, a crocheted spread, and lace 4 inches wide made of number 60 thread on the pillow slips.
Under the looking glass, there was always "the toilet" made of 3 orange boxes stacked up (used as a catch-all) and covered with a be-ruffled curtain, gathered on a string. The runner on top was a work of elegance and here sat the family treasures: a vase of cat-tails, a picture of the temple, a colored rock from Mammoth Soda Springs, a wreath of hair flowers, red, black, brown, gray, and gold love-locks from the loved ones. This was the age when even the President of the U.S., when asked for something precious to put in the corner stone of the treasury building sent a lock of his baby's hair.
Today there are but few to look back with Harrison Plummer Tippets to Brigham City. But many can go back to the five little log houses along Spring Creek, so full of children, the old fashioned flower gardens, the large patches of corn, potatoes, and berries of all kinds, corn, potatoes, and berries they helped to plant, and pick and eat. Back to the large fields of alfalfa and grain, to the streams to wade and fish in, and duck ponds with ducks on till sun down, and watering troughs with poly-wogs. To tall trees with many kinds of birds, their songs, nests, and eggs. To nearby foothills covered with wild flowers to pick, and good berries to gather and eat, and "pig-weed" greens. The big hollow, with its spring for picnics. The slide-rock and cave to explore. The Hog's Back Mountain with well-gummed pine trees to climb.
There were always horses to ride and drive, and cows to hunt and milk. There were baby calves and lambs to feed; and dogs with puppies and cats with kittens, and old hens with chicks and litters of little pigs to look after.
Beside the usual barns and coops and corrals and stacks of hay and straw, there were the granary, the big barn, and the shop, full of curious looking things.
And there were the milk-house, the outhouse, and the two cellars - one for the women's fruit and one for the men's vegetables. Woe be to the one who got mixed-up in his undertakings.
Harrison Plummer Tippets was a farmer in the old-fashioned sense; a tiller of the soil and a grower of live stock. And he was beside: a bailer, a binder, a thrasher! And before that: a railroader, a canal builder, and a carpenter. He built his town house as well as all his out buildings.
He has lived to see the evolution in farm machinery change from hand plow and scythe to tractor and combine harvester, and to use them all.
He has lived to experience the evolution of the American home from the lamp-lighted log cabin to the gas-heated store furnished home of the city.
He has lived through the miracles of transportation, from Pony Express to the airplane. And he'd have been flying around before this if his heart doctor hadn't forbade it.
He has lived to hear the miracles of communication — from the echo of his own voice in the canyon (as logger) to the President's whisper, carried around the world in as little time.
He has lived to enjoy the miracles of recreation, from breaking a wild horse to driving a car all over Utah and Idaho — from the old swimming hole, pitching horseshoes, and "turn-Bible-turn" to the movie, the talkie, grand opera over the air, and games of skill and change. From the old “Meller-Drammers” of the home ward to the best the old playhouse could produce. From the little old 4th-of-July parades in Perry, to the celebrations of the Jubilee year - and now 42 years of Centennial Celebrations since 1905, the 100th anniversary of the Prophet's Birth.
He has lived to be spiritually fed — from the first Testimony Meeting he can remember to the dedication of the Salt Lake Temple and thirty years of labor therein and also whereto he and Emma were called to receive their Second Endowments.
He has lived to serve his community as constable and as justice of the peace. And he has been set apart for many special duties in the Church: in his quorums; the Mutual Improvement Association Presidency, on the recreation committee, for years on the home mission and as block teacher, for thirty months as a missionary to the Northern States.
All his life he has attended the General Conferences and brought as many members of the family as he could. Usually, he attended the stake conferences, and always made it a family occasion, but once he went horse hunting instead and came home to find himself the Bishop of the ward (where he served 5 long years).
He has lived to be blessed beyond the promises made in his Patriarchal Blessing, and to bless many others in return.
He has lived to realize his faith as a sustaining power when he laid away his own wee boys, his beloved parents, his brother, sisters, cousins, and friends, and stark tragedy when fire swept away the home he built and with it his darling daughter and her three little sons. He has lived to see so much that life calls good taken away - but it has not blinded him to the lot life holds for him still. He knows, "So long as we love, we serve." And he has loved and still loves so greatly and so many.
He has been blessed with a true helpmate and sure he needed one; and 11 children, 39 grandchildren, 21 great-grandchildren, eight in-laws, a family total of 81 in 1947.
He has been liberal in the support of Church auxiliaries, temples, and tabernacles, and in ward maintenance and the educational institutions of the Church and State.
Someone has said, "The family that plays together, stays together," and someone has added, "The family who prays together, stays together." His family has worked and played and prayed together. He is blessed with a natural sense of humor and even temperament, but when out of control, a hot temper. He has the gift of leadership and he never talks just to hear himself, but when he speaks with authority, he means just what he says. He has a good singing voice, and loved to sing lullabies to his babies and old love songs to his Emma, and the songs of Zion.
And he's had a lot of fun in his life. He may not be as skillful in hunting as his father and his brother, nor as graceful in dancing, or as dramatic in acting, but he could wrestle, swim, jump, skate, and ride and get along with all kinds of people. He refused to take music lessons any longer because he took one and couldn't play like whoozit who had practiced for years. And we fear his education was curtailed, because of a family failing. Willing to share his last crust, or the shirt on his back, but just try taking an idea away from him — or an ideal. He's always well informed for he's an excellent reader — that is before cataracts covered his eyes — and his home has always had the church publications in it, national magazines, books galore, and pictures and music and games. And for 25 years the Bishops of the 5th Ward, Salt Lake City have been coming to his home for counsel on Church History and gospel doctrine.
We all stem from the same family and have been members of the Church since the year it was organized. The first family service to the church is so typical of the character sketches given last year and so like Harrison Plummer Tippets himself that we use it as it is recorded in the history of the Church.
When the Church was 4 years old (1834) William Plummer accompanied the Prophet Joseph and 200 others on that famous military trek from Ohio to Missouri and back again. From this same Zion's Camp the Three Witnesses of the Book of Mormon selected the 1st Quorum of Twelve Apostles. But every member received a special blessing and when William Plummer was married, the Prophet performed the ceremony and made a wedding for them in his own home there in Kirtland. In the fall of the same year Joseph Harrison Tippets and company left the town of Lewis, New York for Kirtland, Ohio. They had been voted "wise and honorable men" to carry financial assistance from this little branch of the church to the Prophet. The spirit in which this service was rendered is so typical of the family and so touched the hearts of the Prophet Joseph and Oliver Cowdery. They made a solemn covenant with the Lord and wrote it down, a prayer and a prophecy and consequently the ancient law of the tithe was restored in these latter days. And these together with the minutes of the council held the 28th of November 1834 — when this Tippets family arrived — are recorded in the History of the Church.
Again in March 1835 when the one hundred most faithful knelt with many early leaders (including the famous Sam Brannan) to be blessed for their labor on the Kirtland Temple, Joseph Harrison Tippets was one of them. And finally, September 23, 1835, the Prophet wrote in his diary: "Kirtland, Ohio, at home writing blessings for my most beloved brethren — Brothers Wm. and John and Jos. H. Tippetts came to bid us farewell as they started for Zion. We prayed together — David Whitmer as spokesman — He prayed in the spirit and a glorious time succeeded his prayer; joy filled our hearts and we blessed them and bid them God speed and promised them a safe journey — God grant them long life and good days. These blessings I ask in Christ's name — Amen."