EDMOND NELSON
A biography written by his grand-daughter, Margaret Elaine Russell Hoopes,
with material taken from the autobiography of his brother, Price Williams Nelson, Jr.< xml="true" ns="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" prefix="o" namespace="">
Edmond Nelson was born on Oct 30, 1851 at the old Fort in Ogden, Utah to Mormon Pioneers, Price Williams Nelson, Sr., and Lydia Ann Lake. When he reached his full stature, Edmond was about 5 ft 6 in tall, rather stocky, but not fat. He had blue gray eyes and brown hair. In his later years he wore a large mustache and his head was bald. His contemporaries described him as being sometimes quick to anger but was more often moved to compassion toward those around him. He was always ready to help his fellow man, but asked very little from those outside his family.
When Edmond was four years old his family left Ogden, Utah, at the time of the “Big Move,” and located in San Bernardino, California, which was being settled by Mormon pioneers at the request of President Brigham Young. His sisters Samantha and Lydia Ann and Brother Price Williams Jr. were born while living in San Bernardino. After seven years, the First Presidency of the Church called the family back to Utah. They then settled in Payson, Utah. While they were living there, Edmond’s sister Lorana was born.
While they were living in Payson, Edmond’s father took up the trade of making chairs. They were made with raw hide seats. It was woven back and forth to form the seat and would last for years. They were known to last until the wood wore off the rocker where it joined on the legs. Edmond’s father was a very restless man and was not content to live very long in one place. After living only a short time in Payson, Price Williams decided to hit the road again with his little family and their earthly belongings.
At this time many Saints were migrating to different parts of the West, and it was a concern of the Brethren in Salt Lake. General Authorities would be sent out by pairs, on horseback, to check on the Saints, from time to time.
Edmond related this experience to his grand-daughter Elaine about an incident that happened along the way from Payson to Franklin, Idaho. Traveling by covered wagon was a very tiresome and hard experience and the Saints always welcomed the arrival of the two Authorities from Salt Lake because this would always call for a celebration. One day as Edmond, or Ed as he was called, was walking along beside the covered wagon, a man rode up on horseback and told them that the Authorities would be visiting them in their camp the following day. Edmond said that some teenage boys heard about this great occasion, and because there would be rejoicing and celebration the next day, they made a plan to have some fun. The boys stole some mint julep, which was used by the Saints as a laxative. The night of the celebration, while the wagons were in a circle, and there was much singing, praying and storytelling and talks from the General Authorities, the boys went to the punch bowl and secretly spiked the punch with mint julep tea they had secretly brewed. The rejoicing continued with meat that had been obtained by killing small animals during the day as the men and boys walked along the plains and the cakes that the women folks had made over the camp fire. About midnight, the lanterns were put out and everyone went to their wagon and settled down for the night. However, soon the lanterns were quickly lit, and Edmond said, with a twinkle in his eye, that there was a pioneer behind every bush.
After a long, hard journey the family arrived in Franklin, Idaho. Edmond remarked how numerous the sea gulls were there. While his father was plowing and breaking up the soil, they would follow in great flocks going back and forth and gathering the bugs, ants and grass hoppers, that were in the soil.
There were also Indians living in those Western regions whose food consisted of many red ants as well as the grass hoppers. They could tell when the Indian’s food consisted of many red ants as well as the hoppers, because when they had eaten many red ants it would make the Indians change color and become red, somewhat like the ants. The children soon noticed this and when they saw that an Indian had changed color, they would say, “That Indian has been eating red ants.”
During their stay in Franklin, Idaho, Edmond’s father operated a sawmill for Apostles Benson and Thatcher. The Nelsons were very poor and during the cold winter they had to stay indoors most of the time, for want of proper clothing. If the children went out to the corral or to a neighbor’s, they had to go through the snow bare-footed. They suffered very much from the cold weather in Idaho.
Just below their sawmill was a gristmill operated by a man named Cord. Flour was $25.00 a hundred and he sold it to some mining men, the roughest, most profane set of men that they had ever seen, according to Edmond. They had teams of big oxen, which they would name after the General Authorities of the Church. When they were going past Mormon’s homes, they called out at the oxen, using slang and using the most terrible oaths. Edmond recalled how they hated to hear this. These ruffians drove big, broad prairie schooner wagons, each one with a bucket of pine tar and a paddle hanging behind. They used this to grease the wagon wheels.
Edmond recalled in those days cloth was made in the home on hand looms. Edmond’s did a lot of spinning and knitting. While he was there in Idaho, he saw the first sewing machine that was in this section. It was owned by Apostle Thatcher's mother and every one thought it was a marvelous invention. It was run by a little crank.
Edmond’s father became restless again, so he moved his family to Logan, Utah. While they were there, Hyrum and James Mark were born. Hyrum on Jan. 10, 1863 and James Mark on Aug. 12, 1865. Out west of Logan on the banks of the river they made guns and other firearms. There were great piles of steel shavings on the floor of the old cabin. As soon as their mother was able to travel after having given birth, the family moved to St. Thomas, Nevada where Thomas George was born.
That country was too cold, so Edmond’s father decided to move south where it was warmer, so they moved to “The Muddy,” a long way south, but still in Nevada. At that time the Authorities in Salt Lake were assigning families to go to The Muddy Mission. The conditions there were very bad, and many of the Saints refused to go there. It took them a while to reach The Muddy because they had to stop and replenish their supplies.
The Nelson family stayed in St. George, Utah, for the winter. This was the winter the Whitmore boys were killed near Pipe Springs in nearby Arizona. It was a very severe winter, with lots of snow. They camped three weeks at Orson Starr’s place and fed their team on straw and chaff.
It was about this time that the telegraph came into that part of the country. Edmond later told his grand children that he used to wonder how the newspaper could get past the poles. They had told them that news came over the wire, so they, of course, thought it must come on paper.
Also later in life, Ed wondered why they did not help their mother cook. But he said they didn't. They all sat around and watched her do it. While traveling she would make flapjacks of bread rolled into cakes, which she would cook in the frying pan. She would brown the tops from the coals. When she had a stack of bread made she would fry some bacon and make gravy out of the grease with scorched flour and water. This was their fare every day, but they thought no food since has ever tasted so sweet.
They also often ate whole, boiled wheat. They had very few dishes and so their mother had to serve directly from the Dutch oven, the iron stew pot or the frying pan. The Nelsons had hardly any bedding, so they slept in the straw stack or in a bin of cotton that had not been ginned. Sometimes they ate the cottonseeds.
After the family reached The Muddy, they helped built a town corral and each one had to take care of his own cattle so that the Indians would not steal them. Each family had to send someone to herd a day for each cow he put in. Their father made arrangements with some of the owners to let Edmond and his brother Price Williams guard for them, so they spent much of their time at this business. They were taken down to the Virgin River, where the most feed could be found. There was a lot of green for them to eat and they did very well, but they had much trouble with the cattle getting in the quick sand. Once they got in the quick sand, it was very hard to get them out. Manys the time they helped to get the cattle out, pulling one leg at a time, sometimes tying it under the animal, and some times putting a long plank or leg under and raising her up out of the sand. Many cows they never did get out.
For some years their teacher in school was Wellington P. Wilson, a very lazy old man, according to Edmond and his brother Price Williams. The school house was made of adobe with a loose sand floor. The teacher had to have a sleep every day and he would ask one of the students to teach the class for him. Then he would tip his chair back on the two back legs, put his feet up on his desk, fold his arms, and soon fall fast asleep. Just as the students thought him asleep, they would all drop down on the floor and begin to play mumble peg. Sometimes he would give a loud snort and how the children would scramble for their seats, but to find him only snoring in his sleep, and would soon be back on the floor, as excited as ever over their game of mumble peg. Each day the teacher would make them recite, and it was always the same little rhyme, "Twinkle, twinkle, little star, how I wonder what you are, up above the world so high, like a diamond in the sky…" They had to put a great deal of expression into the lines, raising their arms up high and putting them from side to side with expressional gestures.
Later they had a teacher from the North, and they learned much from him for he was educated and a wonderful man. His name was Warren Johnson. Warren later married Edmond’s sister, Samantha. Warren Johnson taught them in the same little adobe schoolhouse, only it had a door put in it and had been repaired.
According to Edmond, his parents, Price Williams and Lydia Ann Lake Nelson, were hard working, industrious people, very devoted to their family and to the Church. They taught their children to love and respect authority, and to be honest and hard working.
Edmond’s younger brother, Price Williams, Jr., had long black hair, and his playmates used to call him an Indian because he looked so much like one and always sought their company. In his autobiography, Price Williams, Jr. remarked, "My grandmother was a half-breed Cherokee Indian, so I am pretty much mixed up with these people.” There is an old family legend that when one of the first Nelsons, whose name was perhaps Abraham, landed in America, he was ship wrecked on the shore of North Carolina and a Cherokee Indian maiden rescued him. It was illegal for white men to marry Native Americans at that time, so it is not known if they married, but the legend is that she became the mother of his children, so we Nelsons may have Indian ancestors.
The Indians on the Muddy were very troublesome, stealing and killing cattle and horses, so the white men made a treaty that when anyone stole they were to be whipped, five lashes for the first offense and double over time. As long as it was enforced they had little trouble. For white people stealing from them it was the same punishment. An old Dutchman by the name of John Eaten stole a canvas from an Indian, so the interpreter tied his hands to the wheel of the wagon with a rope and took a heavy black whip and gave him five lashes, which was very hard for the old Dutchman.
There was an old Indian named Toquapp. He caused the people a great deal of trouble by stealing so much, and he said he would continue stealing cattle and horses all the time, so the people decided to hunt or chase him down and put him to death. They spent days and weeks before they got him. The way they got him, he was described to some California emigrants camped at the California crossing on The Muddy. He came to beg for bread and to pilfer around. They knew him by description. They took him and tied him up and sent word they had him. Edmond’s father and John Merrill and others had been out for a long time hunting him and when they returned the Californians had him in chains. Old Toquapp knew they would kill him, so he tried to get them to let him loose. The people held a council and decided to hang him, but being unable to make scaffolds, as they had no timber, they took him out in the sand hill a long way out on an old trail. The men went ahead well armed, two loosed him and they followed to make sure he would not come back.
At harvest time the Indians would eat and eat until some of them actually died from eating too much. Those that didn't die became so fat they would hardly be recognized.
There was an old squaw who sold her baby son for a little of nothing, sold him to some emigrants going to California. The child was afraid at first and cried and tried to get her not to let them take him but she did not take any notice of him. The people took him, cut the strings that held his breech cloth, bathed him, put on some nice clothes, and made a very nice looking little fellow out of him. She did not see him for two years. The people happened to be going through the country and brought him back to see his people. The poor mother then cried and cried for him to come back to her, but he had then been educated and taken good care and he did not take any more notice of her tears than she did his when he was taken.
In those days there wasn't any kind of soap and they soon learned that by digging ose roots, pounding them into a pulp then placing the pulp into water, it would soon become a nice sudsy substance and very good to use, especially to wash the hair. The women used to save all their cottonwood ashes, put them in a barrel, pour water over them and let them stand for a few days. This would soften the water and make it very nice to do their washing with. The water from the Virgin River was so hard that they could not use it for washing unless they treated it with boiled cotton wood ashes. They would have barrels of these ashes to leech and combine it with waste grease to make soft soap. In those days if a women had a barrel of soft soap she was very happy.
After considerable abuse and heavy taxes from the state of Nevada, Brigham Young counseled them to move again, leaving their crops and homes. Edmond’s family moved to Berries Valley in 1870 near Glendale, in Kane County, Utah.
Edmond related that they suffered with hunger and thirst and cold while making the move from The Muddy to Glendale. Edmond was about nineteen years old at that time, and the oldest child in the family. His brother, Price Williams, Jr. and Ed worked together to drive the cattle and horses to Glendale. Their father agreed with the people of St. Thomas to drive all of the loose cattle and horses through to Glendale, which was a great hardship on the family. They offered about one hundred head of cattle and twenty-five horses. The horses had to be delivered at the Beaver Dam where they wintered. The boys herded the cattle days and corralled them during the nights in the spring. They went on from the Beaver Dam into Glendale in company with old father Acy and his family. They had the cattle from the other settlements, Overton and St. Joe. Acy’s family included himself and wife and four sons, Teets, Aaron, Al and Amos. They had about one hundred and fifty head of cattle.
The cattle were all managed on foot as they had few horses to ride. Edmond said they had one horse, which was so skinny that it could hardly walk, and it had to help pull the wagon along. They had an old Mormon Jackson wagon and there was nine in the family. On account of heavy sandy roads, Edmond’s parents and children would walk behind the wagon for days, pushing to help the team a long, which nearly caused his father’s death, according to his sons.
It took many hard days of travel for man and beast to reach their destination. It was decided that five members of the family should start out and go on with the loose cattle, expecting to reach water that day. Traveling ‘till late at night and with no relief, as they had no water. Ed says they were hungry, thirsty and cold. It was early in the spring and there were snow banks in the mountains and in the shady places, so they decided to turn the cattle up towards the mountains, where there was snow and let them care for themselves. It was decided that the two older brothers, Edmond and Price Williams should return for food, while the three younger boys stayed in camp. They reached camp some time in the later part of the night. Ed said there was no water in camp, nothing cooked and so they made a fire and rested a little while. They took some pans and went to hunt snow banks and were gone about an hour. They returned with snow and melted it, then they mixed bread and baked it and had something to eat. It was nearly daylight when this was done.
The cattle were so scattered that it took the boys about a day to gather them. They accomplished this and got down on the river and they were happy. Camp was pitched under some very large cottonwood trees, the ground was damp and cold. A fire was built to warm a place to sleep, the scanty bedding was spread and six of them rolled in. The steam from the damp ground soon wet the family members, and it went to raining in the night, so they were well soaked that night. By morning they left and traveled a few more days and were near the journey’s end, delivering everything that they started with, but three head and a calf that got its leg broken. Father hauled it several days, but it soon died. The three cows we left in the sand hills.
After making the hard trip on foot driving the cattle, Ed’s family suffered very much for food and clothing. They planted a crop of corn but it was late corn and the only way it could be eaten was to make mush. They had to depend on their neighbors for our milk for it.
The Nelson children went bare footed and ragged. Ed’s father got hold of a heavy and old piece of tenting and their mother made the boys some pants out of it. It was so stiff and hard that she had to use an awl to make them and after they were made, they would stand alone. After Ed had worn his a few days they broke where they bent, across the seat, by the pockets, at the knees front and across the back. You can well imagine how they looked, but they cared very little about it because they ware used to rags.
When the family landed in Glendale they lived on pigweed greens, buckwheat cakes and sour corn for that first year.
They moved into two log rooms that had been left by the first settlers when they abandoned that country a few years before. The roof was only partly on and the floor was dirt, but it provided shelter. Because the Nelsons were so destitute for clothes, and their canvas pants broke and split, their father set about to make a loom. It was so large that it almost filled the room, so they had to live in the other room almost all the time.
There was a fireplace in this room, so it was their kitchen, too. It is unknown where or how they got the material to run the loom, but either their Mother or Samantha, the oldest sister, spent a lot of time at it until they got some lindsey made for the girl's dresses.
Ed’s father planted a large patch of turnips and they did well. Ed’s brother remarked, “I think I have never seen such a beautiful crop, but we lived on turnip soup for so many months that we grew tired of it.” Old man Brinkerhoff had planted white flint corn while the Nelson’s was the large dent corn, the late variety, so his matured and the Nelson family’s didn't. As it was awful scarce he charged five dollars a bushel for it. Ed’s father gave Price a five-dollar gold piece, though he can't imagine where father got it, and Price got one bushel of corn for it.
Then during that first summer the black measles broke out in the settlement. The neighbors across the street, Andrew Gibbons, buried three children in one grave, a pair of twins and a little boy. His son-in-law buried two in one grave and then Charlie Smith lost one too. It would have been terrible if the disease had started in the Nelson family, there were so many of them in such a crowded condition. To keep them free of it, their father and mother gave the children bitters made from the wandering milkweed root. Every morning every child had to drink a half-cup of this bitter medicine but it purified and cleansed their blood and not one of them caught the disease. It is a wonder they didn't all die as they were so poorly housed.
One interesting thing in the town was the old corn mill. This was made of two round rocks, one fastened into a cotton wood stump, set down in it a little ways so there was a little space between the rock and the wood. The top one was a little larger and heavier and arranged so that it could be raised or lowered to make the meal coarse or fine. They would put a handful of corn in and get the meal out the other side. Every body in town depended on this old mill for their corn meal. Sometimes there would be a whole line of people waiting to use it, each with his pan of corn. They usually came in the evening or early morning and would talk and visit until it was their turn at the mill .
At this time while living in Glendale, Utah, Edmond, his brother Price William Jr., and his father built and ran a shingle mill, which they had also operated in California.
In the settlement lived James Brinkerhoff with his three wives. Mary Caroline was the second child of Rebecca Hawk Brinkerhoff., and was the tenth child of her father. When she was seventeen years of age she traveled by wagon and team from Glendale to Salt Lake City to marry Edmond Nelson.. They were married May 11, 1874.
It didn't take long for Ed and Mary Caroline to get started with their family. A son Edmond Nelson Jr., was born Feb 7, 1875. However, little Edmond Jr. passed away June 11, 1877. He was not quite two years old.
After the death of their first little son, Edmond and Mary Caroline moved to Obed, in Apache County, Arizona. Edmond had been called to work as a missionary among the Indians, and to help settle that country.
A few days before James Price was born to Ed and Mary Caroline, Edmond was chosen from his camp to go with others to Lee's Ferry and bring into the country the old sawmill that had cut the lumber for the St. George Temple. They had thirty-seven yoke of oxen. The distance was about two hundred miles and took six weeks in the rain and mud.
Upon returning home Ed found that his wife had been poorly cared for when the baby was born, and from that time until her death she was bothered by severe pains in her head. The baby, who they named, James Price was born Oct. 4, 1876 in Obed, Arizona and passed away Nov 19, 1878 at Moencopi.
Edmond worked about three years at Moencopi, near the Colorado River, and was considered an Indian Missionary and peace maker. He enjoyed working with the Navajos. Edmond’s father had left an old sorghum mill on his way to Tonto Basin near Payson, in Gila County, Arizona. Edmond used the mill to make sorghum and with corn bread, fed the Indians. This also became one of Edmond’s favorite foods. When he was living with his children before he died, Elaine remembers him asking her to make corn bread for him every day.
But in spite of all that had been done for them, the Indians went on the warpath and held the people in the Fort for three days. The old chief kept calling in his own language, “We're going to kill somebody.”
Edmond had a fine yearling steer that he had saved to raise for an oxen. He put a rope on the animal, led him to the gate of the Fort, and said, "Open the gate, boys, I'm going to talk with the Indians." After some protest they let him through, and leading the steer he walked straight to the Chief.
The old Indian sat motionless on his horse. All was silent for what seemed a long time, and then he said, “Speak.” Edmond spoke to him in Navajo. “I have brought meat for you and your people. I did not kill your two young men, nor did anyone in that Fort harm any of your tribesmen. Our mission is one of love and peace. We have no quarrel with any Indian.”
After a few moments the old Indian Chief ordered his braves to butcher the steer, and then he turned back to face this paleface who had come without fear to meet a bank of warriors. When the old Chief spoke his voice had changed, and he spoke in broken English. He said only one word—“Friend.” Within a few minutes there was not an Indian in sight.
Some years later when Ed was freighting in northern Arizona he noticed a dust cloud off to the left of his wagons. As the riders approached he realized they were two Indians. Ed dismounted from his wagon and drew a drink of water from the barrel as they came to a dusty halt. When he offered the Indians the water one of them sprang from his horse and hugged Ed like a long lost brother, and then he told his white friend that he was in the attack on the Fort. He was the son of the old Chief. Before they departed they told Ed that all the water holes along the regular route had dried up, but that if they would go to a certain mountain not too far off the trail they would find plenty of good spring water.
In the spring of 1880 came the call from President Woodruff to go to St. Johns and help settle that country. Ed Nelson heeded that call from the Prophet of the Lord. When the St. Johns Stake was organized Ed was chosen as one of the first high councilors, in which position he faithfully served for more than 35 years.
Edmond’s home was a half mile below St. Johns. He and Mary Caroline had had a daughter, Lydia Ann born Dec 18, 1878 in Moencopi. Lydia Ann, named for Ed’s mother, passed away when she was 18 years old, and was buried in Eagar, Arizona. On Feb 1, 1881 a daughter, Mary Edith, was born to Ed and Mary Caroline. Mary Edith grew to maturity and later married Julius Cropas. On Feb 21, 1883, a son, Hyrum Brinkerhoff, was born. He later married Jane Thompson. On May 6, 1885 Joseph Edmond was born. He later married Jennie Greenwood. On Mar 5, 1885, George Bailey was born and he later married Rose Margaret Morris.
Edmond raised stock and followed farming for a living. Once again he kept corn bread and molasses for the Indians. The Zunis as well as Navajos often stopped to rest and water their horses at his place. They would come into the screened porch and help themselves to the corn bread and molasses, but never bothered his family, his livestock, or his equipment, not even the ax that lay in the woodpile.
Mary Caroline was very busy with her little family, and was not well. Edmond employed a beautiful young woman, Margaret Foutz, who was 18, to come to help his wife and children. Since it was expected of the faithful Mormon men to practice polygamy at that time, and Ed had thought Margaret would make a good plural wife, he asked her to marry him, which she did. While living in St. Johns, Arizona, they made the long journey to St. George Utah where Margaret Foutz became Edmond Nelson’s first plural wife.
Mansel Nelson, a grandson of Ed and Mary Caroline, wrote in his book about the Nelson Family, that these two wives learned to love each other dearly. However, Ida Nelson, daughter of Edmond and Margaret Foutz, stated to her daughter, Margaret Elaine, that she thinks that Mary Caroline, the first wife of Edmond, passed away with a “broken heart.” Also, Adelbert Nelson, son of Joseph Nelson, one of Edmond and Mary Caroline’s sons, suggested to Margaret Elaine that this plural marriage was very hard. When asked how all of Edmond’s children turned out be such great leaders in the Church, as well as having wonderful families with numerous children, Adelbert Nelson stated, “It is hard work that did it.”
After their marriage, Edmond took Margaret home to live in the same house with his family. George Bailey, born Mar 5, 1887 was only a year old when Margaret came to live with this family. Mary Caroline gave birth to another baby daughter on April 15, 1889, who they named Rebecca, who later married John Eddy Butler.
After many years of illness, Mary Caroline passed away on Nov 19, 1889, leaving Margaret with six small children to raise. Lydia Ann was only 11 years old when her mother, Mary Caroline passed away. Lydia Ann lived only seven years after the death of her mother. Margaret had Mary Edith, 9 years old , Hyrum 7 years old, Joseph 5 years old, and George Bailey four years old.
It must have been very hard for a young bride of eighteen to take on all of this responsibility. Adelbert Nelson stated that Margaret would not let this family of the first wife call her mother. She insisted that they call her Aunt Margaret or Aunt Maggie. In those days the plural wife was frequently called “Aunt” by the children of another wife. Adelbert said this was a hard thing for them to do, but Aunt Maggie was very good to them, and even though they all had to work very hard, they all knew the rules and generally followed them.
Edmond Nelson was very active in the Church, and always insisted that they all attended their Church meetings. Even though he was on the High Council and had other assignments, Margaret, with the help of the older children, made sure that they all were at their meetings on time.
After Edmond and Margaret were married for about ten years, Edmond was called on a full-time mission to the Southern States. This was during January, 1898. The next 2 years Ed spent mostly in the hills of Kentucky, traveling from one village to another preaching, often meeting strong opposition, but at other times making friends and winning converts to the Church. Not having Ed at home made life extra difficult for Margaret. By then she had four children of her own.
While Ed was away, Margaret and her children ran the farm and managed the best they could. Margaret’s own four children ranged in age from two years to seven and five step children were from nine to seventeen years of age. Their little daughter Lucy, was only about 7 months old when Edmond left for his mission.
Margaret Foutz was the daughter of Joseph Lehi Foutz and Amanda Foutz. Her grand parents, Jacob Foutz, was baptized with his family, consisting of 12 children and his parents, in Ohio in 1834. Jacob Foutz was shot in the Haun’s Mill Massacre in 1838. He was miraculously saved by his wife, Margaret, who dressed him in women's clothes to hide him from the mob. Jacob was a bishop in Nauvoo and was among the first Saints to enter the Salt Lake Valley in 1847.
Edmond had returned from his mission early in 1900 and on November 5, their next child, who they named Price William, was born in Eagar. Here they built a home, imposingly located on the side of a small knoll overlooking the entire valley below. It was backed by scrub cedars with a field of fertile soil below, planted with fruit trees and vegetables. Edmond and his sons constructed Nelson’s Dam, near Alpine, Arizona. The Church records during his lifetime at Eagar are full of baptisms and blessings that Ed performed. Together with his sons, they were able to have much land and horses and cattle.
It was to his home that Ed brought his mother, Lydia Ann Lake Nelson. At the time she came to live with Edmond and Margaret, her husband Price Williams Nelson Sr., chose to go to Mexico with his son Price William, Jr., and his family. Price William, Sr. passed away in Oaxaca, Mexico at the age of 80. He had belonged to the Nauvoo Legion and was one of the Prophet Joseph Smith’s body guards. Lydia Ann was not able to make the trip to Mexico, so she chose to stay at the home at her son Edmond, which she did until her death. She was known as “Old Grandma,” to distinguish her from grandmother Margaret Nelson. She loved to tell pioneer stories about her early life, and often the young folks of the village would come to hear her.
Most of the time one or more of Edmond’s sons ran the ranch. Hyrum B. Nelson and his family lived there several years during which time they raised abundant crops of alfalfa hay, oats, barley, wheat, corn, potatoes, beans, and sometimes field peas and sorghum cane. There were fine horses and cattle, and hogs by the dozens. Also there was a honey house, and a fine crop of honey bees, from which delicious honey was extracted.
Later in their lives, Edmond and Margaret Nelson spent some time in Mesa, Arizona. After the Temple was built, they attended the temple daily, and Grandpa Nelson expressed often how much he enjoyed being able to do this work.
Lois Nelson Pope, daughter of Price William and Sylvia Irene Robinson, states the following. “I don't ever remember Grandma Nelson coming down to the ranch East of Springerville to visit. It was always Grandpa, almost every Sunday--still in his horse drawn buggy. I’m sorry to say we never welcomed his visits because all he could do was criticize all of us, saying how lazy we were, even Mama, and that we weren't doing anything right. It was ‘till after I was married and he (Edmond) died and I received from my sister, Helen, something he had written, giving his thoughts and heart-felt feelings about his great love of the Gospel, and his family, that I cried that I had never known his heart and feeling within that gruff and un-loving exterior, and I’m grateful that at that time I came to love Grandpa Nelson. We would go to his place in Eagar in the fall and help pick apples and extract honey from his beehives. How very good the apples smelled in the underground cellar. Grandma Nelson, of course, was there but she never had much to say. I thought she was a very sad person, as I never remember seeing her smile. I had heard talk from some grown ups (not daddy--I don't ever remember him speaking ill of his dad even though he was very hard on him--and daddy seemed to have a great love for his tender mother)--that Grandpa Nelson was hard on Grandma Nelson. I remember helping her in the kitchen a few times. She always had an apron on. I helped her skim the cream off the milk that had set a day in pans and helped make butter there sometimes. My most vivid picture of her (Margaret Foutz) is just quietly sitting and rocking in the living room and letting me comb her hair.”
A few years before Margaret’s death, Mansel Nelson talked to her concerning her attitude and relationship with her husband's first wife, who was fourteen years her senior. Margaret’s reply was simple and direct, with a ring of genuine sincerity and truth. “I want you to remember what I am about to tell you. I loved your grandmother more than any other person on earth, next to our husband. There was never a cross word passed between us. I hope she is pleased with what I have tried to do for her children as they grew up.”
Several of her step-children were known to have said, “Aunt Maggie has never shown any partiality toward her own children. She was a loyal and loving mother to all of us alike.”
For a while, after Margaret died in 1939, Edmond lived with his daughter, Ida Nelson Russell, at their home in Safford. This is the time that his grand-daughter, Margaret Elaine, remembers that he asked her to make corn bread for him and for her to write out his life’s story. She was unable to write the story, although she remembers making corn bread for him. Edmond then went to Mesa, Arizona to live with his daughter Loraina, where he died on August 20, 1946. He was buried on Aug. 22, 1946 at Eagar, Apache County, Arizona, where he lived for so many years and his wives are buried.