JOSEPH NAHUM CURTIS
Joseph Nahum Curtis was born on August 8, 1848 at Keg Creek, Iowa, the second son of Lyman Curtis and Charlotte Iris Alvord. He was named Joseph after the Mormon prophet, and Nahum after his grandfather. He was nicknamed Dode. He was living at Winter Quarters with his family when President Young asked his father to scout and provide meat for the first party of pioneers, leaving his family behind. His dad came back and took his family across the plains to the Great Salt Lake Valley.
The Curtis family went south to settle in a place called Pondtown, which was later named Salem after the birthplace of his father, New Salem, Mass.
Dode's hair was light colored, a "towhead" when he was young. He grew to be a five foot seven inch tall strong and wiry man with quizzical, light hazel-blue eyes. He was a "scrapper," fighting in both the Walker and Black Hawk indian wars. When he returned home he went to work at his father's sawmill and hauling logs.
He first met Sarah Diantha Gardner when she was being escorted by one of his friends with her aunt on a trip by oxcart. When Dode asked her father if he could court her, Elias told him bluntly that he wouldn't permit it, another man had been selected for her, and Joseph best be on his way. Dode continued to pursue Sadie and apparently worn down by Dode's persistence, Elias partly relented. He told them if they would not see one another for a couple of years, go separate ways entirely, he would consider at the end of that time the possibility of letting Dode court Sarah Diantha. So Sadie went away to school and Dode worked to earn money to put aside so he could ask for Sadie's hand in marriage at the end of the two years. At the end of the two years Dode reminded Elias of his promise, and even though Elias was reluctant, a promise was a promise and he gave his consent for Dode to formally court Sadie. Only a short courtship followed, they decided upon a wedding date and Dode had to face Elias again. Elias would not consent at first, but because he was partly afraid they would run off anyway, he gave in.
After their marriage in 1870 in the Endowment House, Dode built a little adobe house on ten acres of farm land in Salem his father gave him as a wedding present. Dode was a natural farmer and loved being up before daybreak, for he believed it would make him "healthy, wealthy and wise". He arranged with neighboring farmers to take their produce to mining camps in Nevada and divided his profits with those who had gone in with him.
Dode was shrewd, a hustler and deeply honest. It was on one of these trips that he learned to know one of his father's old friends, Porter Rockwell, from whom Dode bought two black, matched mules, which he called Port and Dick.
In his last year of life, President Brigham Young called Dode to colonize the San Pedro Valley in far away Arizona. Before leaving for this life long mission, Dode married his wife's younger sister, Marilla, satisfying his father in law. Dode took his two wives and their three little girls, Charlotte Iris had just turned eight, by covered wagon to Arizona. They rented out their place in Salem and with the money he saved, Dode was able to acquire a 160 acre ranch on the San Pedro River, six miles north of Tombstone, fourteen miles south of Benson, fifty miles southeast from Tucson.
The San Pedro Valley was not a healthy place to live when the Curtis' arrived. There were swamps near the river where malaria infested mosquitos swarmed. The Mormon colonists wanted to go back to Utah, but visiting Apostle Snow prophesied that if the Saints would live their religion and stay where they were called by the Lord, He would take care of them. Their prayers were answered in a miraculous way; in May 1887 there was a great earthquake and even though the adobe walls of the school house fell in, none of the children were hurt. Later, because of the earthquake, the swamps dried up and there was no more problem with malaria. The Curtis Ranch was a large and rambling place, an oasis for the Mexicans, the Indians, the whites going across the Mexican border to the south. Dode farmed, ranched and freighted to provide for his families. When he needed money to buy things for the ranch, he contracted with the railroads or mines, hauling supplies and produce. He enjoyed keeping bees and had a honey house.
Dode served in many responsible civic and Church callings, including Presiding Elder of the San Pedro Branch. He taught his boys to work with him, they went on long trips down in to Mexico and to the Arizona mining towns of Bisbee, Douglas and Globe.
Dode was interested in modern technology, he was one of the first to have a telephone, a hand crank model that, unfortunately, attracted lightening. The weather could be severe, snow in the winter and it was hot in the summer and there were dangerous electrical storms, one of which in 1916 killed their 21 year old son, Willie.
In 1924, when he was 77, Dode learned that the bank in Payson, Utah, in which his life's savings were invested, had gone bankrupt. Also, an old Spanish land company, the Boquillas y Nogales Water Company of Mexico, began taking away his water rights, making his beloved ranch revert to desert.
Dode's legs began to fail him, his spine and legs hurt all of the time and then his kidneys became infected. Old Doctor Blesdoe, who had cared for the family for many years, diagnosed Bright's Disease. Dode suffered for five months until July 26, 1925, when his mission release finally came directly from the Lord. (His eldest grandson, Grover Hoopes, said that Grandpa wondered why he had never been formally released from his mission call.)
J. N. Curtis' funeral was a big one and it was held at the Ranch. Chairs and benches were carried out in the yard under the mulberry and black walnut trees he'd planted years before. Dode's coffin was placed against the great rose bush, and the porch used for the speakers and those on the program. Attorney John Ross of Tombstone, in his talk, said "if every person here who'd received a favor or had been done a good deed by Joseph N. Curtis were to place a flower by his coffin, the mound would rise higher than the coffin." He was buried next to Marilla and his mother-in-law in the little St. David Cemetery.
*The book "Life is a Fulfilling...The Story of a Mormon Pioneer Woman--Sarah Diantha Gardner Curtis," a 267 page book, tells many exciting stores about life on the Curtis Ranch. It was written by Olive Kimball Mitchell, a BYU English Professor and a grand daughter and was published by the Brigham Young University Press in 1967. It is now out of print, but may be checked out from libraries and permission has been given by the author to copy the book for personal use.