(A short history of Joshua Alvin Tolman written by his daughter Louisa Tolman Cranney.)
My father, Joshua Alvin Tolman was born 28 Mar 1858 in Tooele, Utah. His wife Mary Jane Gorringe was born 12 Oct 1857 in Bountiful, Utah. They were married 12 Dec 1878 in the Endowment House in Salt Lake City, Utah.
They lived in Salt Lake City for three years and Alvin worked for his wife’s father William Osborne Gorringe at the harness trade, but the indoor work did not agree with him so he left Salt Lake City in the spring of 1881 with his father Cyrus Tolman and mother Alice Bracken and their children. Joshua Alvin and his brothers filed on some land at Marion, Idaho. Father built a one-room cabin and returned to Salt Lake that fall for his wife and two children, William and Owen.
The following spring, desiring to put in a crop but not having a team to put in a crop he didn’t know what to do. He went to Oakley to attend priesthood meeting and Brother George Whitley approached and said: “Brother Tolman, I have ten dollars I don’t need just now. You are welcome to it to buy seed to plant your crop.” And another man, Brother Klaus Carlson, stopped him and said: “Brother Tolman, I have a team you can take to plow and put in your crop.” Father went home rejoicing and thanked the Lord for his many blessings. Father had a strong testimony of the gospel, and I have heard him bear his testimony many times. He was prompt in performing his many duties in the Church, paying his tithing and other things. He spent many years in the bishopric with Adam G. Smith as bishop and Harvey Sessions and father as counselors.
Father was very prompt as a ward teacher, etc. The last thing he did in this life was his ward teaching. He came home and went to bed as he didn’t feel good. He grew worse and never got up again. Father was a good reader. He read to mother while she did darning and patching.
Mother was a good companion to father. She never wasted anything and took care of everything she had and made everything for us children that we wore until we were grown. She pieced blocks and made quilts. She carded the wool that went into the quilts. Father was a good storyteller. When the mutual (MIA) had programs, they would ask father to tell a story. He was very good at it, making gestures with his hands, etc. The young people were spellbound. Father loved children.
Mother said he always got up in the night time to wait on them when they needed it. Mother said when my brother Parley would sometimes fall asleep before he had his supper, they would put him to bed and during the night he would wake up and ask mother if he could have a piece. She would answer yes. Then he would say: “Father, mother said I could have a piece.” Then father would get up to get the piece. Then he would ask Mother if he could have two pieces. She would say yes; and he would say; “Father, mother said I could have two pieces.”
Father cut and hauled ice from Goose Creek in the winter and stored it in a building that he had built for it, and kept the ice by covering it with bark and chips from cedar wood that he hauled from the mountains to keep us warm in the winter. We made ice cream in the summer with it.
Father and mother were good to people who were going through. They gave them meals and a bed to sleep in, and we children sometimes would sleep on the floor so they could have a bed. We didn’t have a mattress. In those days our bed was known as “ticks” filled with straw.
They were good to the Indians who would ask for food to eat at times. They had some very hard times but never complained and were always willing to share with others and always thanked the Lord for what they had.
My Grandmother Gorringe came to live with us when I was a very young child. I remember how good father was to her. He built a room onto the house so she could have it quiet and be more comfortable, as there was a large family of us (twelve children).
Father was good to his animals. He sold a horse once (We called him old Coly.). Several years after he was sold a man was passing our place going to the mountains for timber. The team turned in at our gate, and he couldn’t get the horses to go any further. He came in and talked to father. Father went our to the wagon and when he saw the horses he said, “There is the horse I sold sometime ago. I guess he thinks he has come back home.” One time father lent a pig to a man. He kept it a long time and brought it back one day when father was not home and put it in the pen. When father came home he didn’t know the pig because it was so thin. So father opened the pen door thinking it was someone elses and tried to drive it out; but the pig would not go so father called the dog to help him. The dog was sicced on him and then father recognized the pig, so he hollered to the dog; “Stop. Don’t you know that is my pig!”
When brother William was on a mission, he needed some money and father didn’t know how or where to get it right then. One day when he was tending sheep on the banks of the Snake River about where Milner is now, he was walking along and kicked up a stone that looked like gold. He had it assayed and the assayer gave him the amount that he was to send to William.
Father kept bees, and I turned the extractor for him. I didn’t mind working for him, but I was always afraid of getting stung. I enjoyed the honey candy Mother made. We girls had lots of fun pulling the candy and making it white and brittle. It was about the only candy we had in those days.
(The following was written by Lewis Owen Tolman 20 Jan 1980. He died Tuesday, 8 Apr 1980 and was buried in Dallas, Texas.)
To: William O. Tolman Bountiful, Utah
“Dear Willie: “I hope this message finds you all well and happy. I have problems with my eyes (cataracts) so forgive me and my writing. I got a letter from Hattie, and I am going to try and help you. Aunt Louie wrote me a letter when I was so sick last year and I’ve been writing to her, Aunt Myrtle, and Sarah all in one letter. I told them these stories and others about the boys (Joshua Alvin’s sons) coming in with pack horses loaded down with deer. I remember two dishpans full of trout. It set me on fire to think of it. I loved the outdoors. I remember Grandfather’s stories at sacrament meeting a couple of times. I remember Grandmother telling me, in later years, that the gospel was true; and she would say, ‘My boys, there’s cookies in the jar and milk and honey if you are hungry.’ (Note: Lewis’ mother died when he was in his 10th year, and he lived with his grandparents and remembers the following.) “I remember Grandpa and the boys cleaning out the corrals and barns one spring. They had one manure spreader and borrowed another from Walt Matthews. I noticed they didn’t stop for dinner (lunch today). I noticed later on they were eating something. They had their pockets full of parched corn, pine nuts, and deer jerky. “Grandpa and the boys were putting up hay. He was tramping and loading the hay and was on the back of the wagon. The team of horses started up rather quickly, and he fell off over the end of the wagon. He fell on his back and was badly hurt. They carried him into the house and put him to bed and called the doctor. He was in bed two weeks and had to behave himself for a long while afterwards. “Uncle Burl had caught a chicken, folded its head back under its wing and laid it on the ground. (It would stay that way indefinitely and look like it was dead.) Grandpa came by with his milk buckets humming a tune. He came upon the chicken which was in front of the automobile shed, gave it a kick and said, ‘Well, you son of a rooster, when did you die?’ The chicken hit the ground running, and we sure had a laugh. It was so funny. “When Grandpa got up in the morning, he would stop at the foot of the stairs (The girls slept up stairs.) And holler, ‘Girls, you had better get up and hear the little birds sing.’ Soon they would be downstairs getting breakfast while Grandpa was milking the cows. “The Idaho Southern Railroad was coming from Milner, Idaho to Oakley, Idaho. Ferris and Kessell were the contractors. They told lies to get them to sign papers for a right-of-way through their land by saying that other people had signed without being paid. Both statements were untrue. The track was laid up to Grandpa’s fence and Grandpa and Grandma were standing in front of the engine. Grandma had a stove poker in her hand about two feet long and was shaking it at Ferris and Kessell telling them how they lied and how crooked they were. They (grandma and grandpa) held them up for about an hour, but there was nothing they could do, so the railroad went on through. There was a small railroad station just before they got to Grandpa’s land. The boys (grandpa’s sons) used to grease the tracks and the wheels would spin. I used to sit on the fence and watch them. Then the boys got to carry sand and put on the rails so the train could move.” Lewis adds these personal comments about himself: “Annie and I are both in wheelchairs. I go to church in one with big wheels; but to stay for the three meetings is too long for me, so we have Sunday School at home sometimes and occasionally we have sacrament meeting also at home. I love the Lord and his Son Jesus Christ and the Gospel we have in our home. June is teaching the investigators class and gives us the lesson on Saturday. Willie, this could go on forever it seems. Please forgive me for my chatter. I am happy and in fairly good health and Annie also. We love you and our cousins. We love the Lord and his mercies. I hope I have been helpful along with my chatter.”
Emma Tolman Higgins shares the following experiences 6 Nov 1979: “As I remember Grandpa Joshua Alvin Tolman, I remember a quiet man, a good friend, an honest man. I remember riding the derrick horse at Grandpa’s when putting up hay. I believe my brother Alvin is very much like Grandpa. You never heard him speak of things he did for others. Grandpa would go along talking to himself sometimes. I thought maybe he was preparing a sermon. I remember him bearing his testimony in meetings. “When I was eight or nine I made Grandpa an applesauce cake for his birthday. He was so tickled. He kept it for months to show people, then he had to soak it in milk before he could eat it. I can remember him sitting in an easy chair, reading and mail, newspaper or Bible to Grandma as she patched clothes or mended socks. He was a special grandpa to all his grandchildren. “Once Uncle Osborne saw a mouse go through a place in the shed. Their old cat sat by the hole waiting for it to return. He thought he would fool the cat so he went back of the shed and poked a finger through the hole. The cat socked his teeth into the finger and Grandpa had to beat the cat to make it let loose. “I remember his funeral. There wasn’t room left in the chapel for people to stand. The Relief Society room and a classroom in the Marion Ward Chapel were full. He had so many friends and relatives.”
(Letter from Aunt Louisa (daughter of Joshua Alvin) to Emma Tolman Higgins: Letter is regarding pictures of her parents given to the William O. Tolman for Tolman Home.)
“Dear Emma, I was so thrilled and very happy to get those pictures of my father and mother as I didn’t have any of them that young. Those large pictures hung in mother’s front room for years. Yes, Dan wanted them after mother passed away. I am so glad Bill got them, and I think they should be hung in the Tolman home. I think they must be pictures of them soon after they were married. “This sure is a busy time of the year. Sarah, bless her, put up apricots for me off a tree she has in her yard. She went to Oregon to visit her oldest daughter. They took some bottles of mine and bottled peaches for me. Last Saturday, she and the school teacher who lives with her came and helped me pick the grapes I have on my back fence. We got about four bushels. Sarah has a juicer so she took them and will make juice for her and me. She gave Clarence and Reba one bushel I think. She surely is good to me. I don’t know what I would do without her. I went to my doctor one day last week for a checkup. I went fasting. He took a blood test and sent it to the hospital to be analysed. My blood pressure was up a little but I hadn’t taken my pills that morning. He called me the next day and said everything was fine. He said for me to just keep taking my pills and to be sure and take the water pills for my kidneys. Well enough about that. “I am thankful I can live in my home and take care of my yard. It keeps me busy but it is good for me. I read your letter to Myrtle. She is real good. She keeps busy quilting, crocheting and so on. I crocheted an afghan this spring and summer–very pretty. You will have to come and see it. It is nice you have another grandson going on a mission. “We have had a real hot summer, but my house is cool as I keep the doors closed in the daytime then open the door and windows at night. “I enjoy your letters, Emma, and love you very much.” Aunt Louisa (Written 19 Sep 1979 in the 86th year of her life Edited by Loraine T. Pace 1998.)
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