MARTHA LAVERNA TOLMAN JONES
24 Oct 1882 – 16 Jun 1954
Daughter of Jaren & Emma Briggs Tolman
by J. Porter Jones, husband
Verne, as we have always called her, was born 24 Oct 1882 at Bountiful, Utah. Her parents lived in a house which was not numbered then but would be about 524 N. Main. One of her first girl friends was Bertha Stahle, now Mrs. Harold Hardy. Her father, Jaren Tolman, was the son of Judson Tolman, an early pioneer from Nauvoo. He was a self educated man who loved his children but taught them early to work. He raised fruit and garden vegetables, put up ice and did contract work, was also a school teacher. Her mother, Emma Briggs, was daughter of Thomas Briggs and Ann Kirkham and was a very kind and devoted wife and mother.
Her parents moved upon the Bench while she was yet a very young girl. Here she picked cherries, hoed the garden, gathered the vegetables and a lot of other outdoor work. So she learned early to love the outdoor work. She relates on occasion she and brother Ephraim were left to watch or herd a young heffer. It got into a lucern patch and just more than went down on the lucern. Soon it began to bloat and they said gee that heffer is getting fat on the lucern. When it laid down and died they just couldn’t understand.
She related another occasion when Judson was cutting wood and he wanted her to hold the stick on the block. She put her foot on the stick and he came down on her foot with the ax. She has carried a large scar on the top of her foot all her life.
When she grew up she was full of life, full of fun and liked to tease. She was popular with the boys and girls but her most intimate girl firends were Bertha Stohle, Lena Knighton, and Pearl Barlow. Pearl lived on the bottom road and Verna lived on the top road, so they stayed a lot with each other and became most real friends. Her boy friends were True Hatch, Quinn Hatch, Leath Parkins, and Thay Waddoups. She went quite steady with Thay and everyone had them, or predicted them, mated. She relates an occasion when she put some rouse on her face at a dance. Her father came in, looked at her, and said, “You get in there and get that off your face or I’ll take you home. Another time she was with a fellow by the name of Miller. She introduced him to her father and wanted to know if she could go out with him that night. Her father said, What stock of Millers do you come from.” When told he said, “Will you come and go home with me.”
When she graduated from the 8th grade she went to John Fisher who ran a store and asked for materials to make a dress to go to the graduation exercises to be held in Farmington. She asked for credit and though a very young girl, Brother Fisher gave her the goods on credit. She picked peas and cherries to pay the debt. She borrowed her sister, Lucretia’s shoes and they nearly crippled her. She tells of going to a wedding reception with Thay . He got intoxicasted with wine and she got someone else to take her home.
At the close of the last year of the 8th grade in school, the school club arranged a party and named the partners. She was given J. Porter Jones for her partner. After the party on their way home, they talked of going to the L.D.S. college next year. She said she wouldn’t be able to go on account of funds. Porter said he was going to Mercur to work for the summer and would make enough money to send both of them to college. She was told it in a dance the following night. The next day the news got back to Porter and he wrote her a letter. She wanted an explanation of the letter which brought us together us together again and soon a romance sprung up which budded and blossomed as they got more acquainted.
Porter went to Mercur and they corresponded. Verna was vigerous, sort of on the Tomboy side. She liked to play ball and other outdoor sports. Her mother died when she was thirteen. Aunt Minnie died a few months later, leaving her to be reared by Aunt Janey as we called her.
As a girl Verna had terrific headaches. Her father told her the best way to cure that was to work it off and that has been her method throughout life. She did housework for Apostle Cowley and Brother Larson, a blind man, and other folks in Bountiful and Salt Lake City.
After graduating elementary school she attended the L.D.S. College. Verna has always been a religious girl, faithful with her prayers and attendance to church and auxiliaries. She liked to dance.
Verna used to pray for a husband who neither smoked nor drank. So as ha already been stated, she corresponded with Porter Jones when he went ot Mercer to obtain funds to go to school. When he came home they became more attached to each other and were sweet-hearts in very deed. Porter went to school one year before Verna and on one occasion she came to visit the school prior to closing time and Porter was staying in town batching with his brother-in-law, Irvin Fisher. He invited her up to his room and prepared a meal for her. She heard while at school that Porter was stepping out with a Miss Taylor. When Porter was walking with her to the Bamberger station she said, “I understand you are stepping out on me.” When Porter admitted that he had taken Miss Taylor to a show, she said, “Well you can suit yourself. It’s either Miss Taylor or me. It isn’t both of us.”
Porter went back to Mercer the following summer and came in the fall to attend L.D.S. College again. Verna started school at this time also. Porter’s people were moving to Mercer which would have him to pay board and room. He knew he couldn’t do this with the funds on hand, so decided the he quit school and go to Mercer to prepare a place to live and Verna to stay in school a little longer.
So Porter and Verna were married 14 Feb 1901 in the Salt Lake Temple. Her folks at Bountiful had prepared a wedding supper. At 4:00 AM they left to catch a Mercer bound train and start out a new life together out in a mining camp. I had rented and furnished a little three room house on the Golden Gate hill close to my mother. We went to mother’s and had dinner with her. After dinner the ward teachers came and they were the slow, stay-a-long-time type. Verna and I had had very little sleep the night previous as the party lasted until after twelve, so it was at least 1:00 AM when we finally got in bed, so we got about 2 ½ hours sleep. Mother could see and understand our predicament, so she excused us and we went down to our little new home and went to bed, my wonderful treasure and I in our little new home. There is no language to explain how dearly I loved this jewell of mine. We went to sleep and must have slept pretty sound. For we never heard the noise of Saranadero who had come the night before. When I got up the next morning, I went outside for kindling and there were tin cans all around the door and I could wee where they had hit the door. I went back in and asked Verna if she heard a noise last night she replied, “I thought I did.” We learned thru my folks that a crown had been there and pestered them and finally came down to where we were but failed to awaken us.
We had no trouble getting along together because she loved me some and I dearly loved her. They soon put us to work in the ward. The most important job in the church is a ward teacher and she a relief society teacher. We moved from our little house on the Golden Gate hill down to the lower end of town in the Johanasburg district.
I was dumping oar out of train cars and got tangled up with a live wire, which nearly wrecked my nervous system. So we moved to Salt Lake where I got a job as a porter in the Kenyon Barber shop. We lived at 23 Apple Street where our first child, a boy, was born. We named him Porter Tolman. Dr. Roberts a midwife and a wife of B.H. Roberts waited on or delivered the baby. The baby was born breech first, 13 Feb 1902 at 1:20 AM.
During the next two and on half years we had moved back to Mercer and then back to Salt Lake City. We were living at 138 North 700 West, in the rear, when our first daughter was born and we named her Mildred.
While at Mercer Verna was put in President of Primary and I back to ward teaching. We bought a three-room house for $85. When we left we sold it with the furniture for $150. I recal while living at Mercer I took a correspondence course in Mechanical Drawing. I was getting along pretty well I thought. One evening after we had cleaned away the dinner dishes I got my board, books, and pencil out to work on my drawing. When all at once Verna brought the baby and set him on my lap. I was sure surprised. I thought she wanted me to get into the white collar job. Well, that ended the mechanical course. I helped take care of the babies after that.
While living at 138 North 700 West I worked again at the Kenyon Barber shop. I remember fellows used to come in after the Barbers had gone and want me to shave and cut their hair. We moved from 700 West to Bountiful and lived in Aunt Phoebe Sessions rock house, 1 block below the Bank.
The old Mercer bug got me again and I went out by myself and batched for a short time. My wife came. We bought another house in Johanasburg and lived there two years. Verna was put back in the Primary work and when set apart was promised that if she never let anything but sickness keep her away from her Primary that she would never have to neglect her work in the church. That promise impressed her throughout her life.
While living in the Session’s house in Bountiful I bought a four room house and 1/4 acre of ground from Frank Briggs for $475.00. We bought the home in Johanesburg for $75.00. When we left, to return to Utah, we rented it. While living at Bountiful I worked at the Utah Packing Company as a pipe fitter helper. I got a chance to buy a barber shop from William Ellis at a bargain and worked at that trade for a while, but had never taken any training in the work and didn’t know how to sharpen my razors. Consequently, I pulled their whiskers out instead of cutting them off.
1 Oct 1906 our little Cumorah was born and we named her after the hill Cumorah. I sold the barber shop to Albert Burningham and went to work at the Rio Grande Railroad as an oar repairer. The year 1907 was sort of a bad year for us. I worked at the railroad then moved my family back to Bountiful and got a job at the packing plant. After about six weeks the plant shut down. I went back to the railroad and then to Mueller’s Ranch in the Mill Creek Canyon of Bountiful. Work ran out and I got work “hilling” celery for a chinese gardener in south Salt Lake. When this work was finished I went back to Mercer and batched with my father near the Sacramento mine. This was really bad. I wanted always to be with my family. I went home for Christmas and we had Christmas dinner up to Verna’s Father and Aunt Janey’s.
15 Jan 1908 I brought Verna and the children to Mercer and we lived in Father’s house in Johanasburg and he boarded with us. My brother, Aaron, was staying with Verna and the children going to school. I hated to move her on his account. In the spring of 1909 Verna’s father wrote and wanted me to come and work with him. He was gardening, putting up and selling ice, and doing contract work hawling dirt, ground sand, etc. We were always anxious to get out of that mining camp and down in the valley. Verna told father about our going and he said, “He is the most changeble man I know.” Verna said, “Shall I get you a looking glass?” He was eating his supper at this time. He dropped his spoon as he was eating some custard or rise pudding and left the room. The next AM he went over to his daughter Jane’s for breakfast. When Verna got up to get his breakfast she noticed he was gone and she followed his tracks thru a fresh fallen snow leading to his daughter Jane. When she got there she asked him what was wrong and she said, “If I have offended you, I am ready to go all the way to make it right.” He said, “There is nothing wrong, but after this I will batch in my room.”
I was working night shift so when I awoke she told me what had happened. My first impulse was to go get another house and be all moved when he came home that night. Then I thought I had better talk to him first. When he came home he went to his own room instead of coming thru our part as he was always used to doing. I went in his room and sat down on a trunk he had there and said, “Come here, father. Sit down by me.” When he got there I said, “What have I done that angers you when Verna says I am like you?” He put his arms around me, kissed me, and said, “You haven’t done anything, my boy. I said, “Well come on, supper is ready.” He came in kissed Verna and everything was all right again.
I quote from my diary. “Porter, Mildred and Cumorah have the measeles. Today is Sunday. I am here with my pen trying to write and listen to my dear wife singing sweet melodies to her babies. She is happy when she can get in a quiet room and hum over some of the songs she knows and I am happy when I can hear her.”
During the year 1908 I worked for Pa Tolman, The Utah Packing Company, helped do some surveying for Bishop Brighton up in Big Cottonwood Canyon. The surveying was in October. It commences snowing when we got there and continued all the while we were there. The snow got up to our arm pits and we had to walk down the canyon on snow shoes for eight miles pulling our luggage on a sleigh. When I hot home I went and got a job at the Packing Company again, but business got bad and they were working us only two days a week. I quit the job and went back to the railroad. The spring of 1909 I took the horse and wagon I obtained from father and went peddling. Toward fall I met a fellow on the highway who had a three year old colt, looked good.
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