EDMOND NELSON
Edmond Nelson was born October 30, 1851 at the old fort in Ogden, Utah. His father was Price Williams Nelson and his mother was Lydia Ann Lake.
Ed's early life was spent on farms and around sawmills. He was about 20 when his parents moved to Glendale, Utah from the Muddy Mission, Nevada. He helped his father build and run a shingle mill. Here he met Mary Caroline Brinkerhoff, who was 17, and they traveled to Salt Lake City to be married.
Ed was soon called to go to Arizona to help settle the country and be a missionary to the indians. He learned the Navajo language and was considered a peacemaker during a time when the Navajos were unfriendly to the white Mormon settlers.
In 1880 a call came from President Woodruff to settle St. Johns, and when the stake was organized there he was called to serve on the high council, which he did for more than 35 years. He raised livestock and followed farming for a living, keeping corn bread and molasses for the indians, both Navajo and Zuni, who visited his home.
It was while he was living in St. Johns that Ed met his plural wife, Margaret Foutz, a beautiful woman of 18. His two wives lived in the same house and he introduced Margaret at his first wife's sister to the federal officers who were prosecuting polygamists, while he entertained them in his house. Mary Caroline died in 1889 and left her small children to be cared for by Margaret.
In 1898 Ed was called to fill a mission in the southern states, in the hills of Kentucky. Margaret and the children ran the farm and managed the best they could; her four children were ages 2-7 years and her five step children were ages 9-17 years.
By 1905, Ed owned a nice home in Eagar, imposingly located on the side of a small knoll overlooking the entire valley. It was to this home that he brought his aged mother, "Old Grandma", to care for her until her death in 1924.
After Margaret died in 1939, Ed spent winters in Mesa working in the Arizona Temple. He was an ardent and faithful worker, always at the temple a little ahead of time.
Ed was about 5 feet 6 inches, rather stocky, but not fat, with blue-grey eyes and brown hair. He wore a large mustache and his head was bald. He was described as being quick to anger but more often moved to compassion toward those around him. He was always ready to help others, but asked very little in return from those outside his own family.
His grand daughter Elaine said of Ed, "Grandpa Nelson had one eye that was gone, there was nothing in there except a plain eye lid. One time he had a lot of horses and he got really mad at this horse. He hit it with a quirt, that is a rope, and it bounced back and hit him in the eye, that is what they told me anyway. He was a very religious man. Grandpa Nelson could pray for hours and you felt like he was just talking to Heavenly Father. He had sort of a big nose too. He was real friendly and nice and kind. He built the Nelson Reservoir in Eagar. Grandpa Nelson loved to extract honey from bee hives, he had a honey house and I liked to go with him to extract honey. He was a real hard worker."
Ed died August 20, 1946 in Mesa and is buried in the Eagar Cemetery.