My 3rd Great Grandmother - Tamma Durfee - A Tough, Resilient Pioneer

This is a great tribute to my third-great grandmother, Tamma Durfee Miner Curtis. My father, Jim Hartley, prepared this summary of her life, and all the events described here really happened. This follows a recent post about another pioneer ancestor of mine, Edward Bunker Sr.

What catches my attention the most here is Tamma's great example of one who persevered and pressed forward amid severe tribulation and opposition because of a firm dedication to what she believed. Tamma truly was a tough, resilient pioneer and is an inspiring person to learn from. Below are my father's words:

Tamma Durfee Miner Curtis: A Tough, Resilient Pioneer

Tamma Durfee Miner Curtis
1813 - 1885

It had been a long time since Tamma Durfee Miner Curtis planted a garden with any realistic hope that she would enjoy the harvest. What a joy to finally have a place to call home. What a relief to plant a garden without fear of hateful, violent, anti-Mormon mobs. What a blessing to be in the new frontier settlement of Springville, Utah, where she and her large family could enjoy relative peace and security.

It was early spring. The garden soil was prepared. Tamma straddled shallow furrows in her long work dress and systematically pressed sweet pea seeds about 1-inch deep into the cool earth. These, combined with other precious seeds she had carried across prairies and mountains, were more valuable to her family’s livelihood than gold. Tamma had most of the first row planted when she heard a clucking noise directly behind her. She discovered a rooster following her eagerly gobbling up the seeds she had just planted. No wretched rooster was going to threaten her family’s survival! She caught the thieving bird, chopped off its head, slit open its gizzard, removed the pea seeds, and replanted them. That evening at dinner, Tamma offered a fervent prayer of thanks to God for her family. She asked a blessing on her freshly-planted garden and on the meal, and then served a delicious dinner of rooster and dumplings.

Tamma Durfee was a pioneer and a child of America’s western frontiers. She was born 6 March 1813 in Lenox, a small, newly-created town in central upstate New York. She was the second of 13 children of Edmund Durfee, Sr. and Magdalena Pickle. Tamma understood at an early age how essential gardens are for a family’s survival. She also knew from the very beginning that frontier life is hard. But, Tamma’s life would be especially hard—one full of seemingly endless hardships and losses.

In 1831, when she was 18 years old, Tamma married Albert Miner. They began their lives together in Ohio, part of the Western Reserve. They were among the earliest converts to a new Christian denomination, the Church of Christ (in 1834 the name was changed to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints). The public nicknamed its members, “Mormons.” Church membership grew quickly in northern Ohio, and soon the followers numbered in the thousands. Local intolerance of the faith sparked hatred and intense persecution. At age 26, Tamma, Albert, and their 5 children joined their fellow church members in an exodus to Missouri. Tamma and her family made their home near Far West. One month after settling in, their 2-year-old daughter, Sylva died. Then, 6 months after Sylva’s death, while pregnant with her sixth child, she and her family were expelled from their Missouri home by Mormon-hating mobs. They were forced—along with thousands of other Latter-day Saints—to travel destitute and ill more than 200 miles to find refuge in Illinois.

Hatred of Mormons continued in Illinois. At age 32, her parents’ nearby home and barns were ransacked and burned by mobs, and her father was later murdered. When she was 33, Tamma’s husband and brother risked their lives in a futile effort to repulse an overwhelming force of merciless anti-Mormon militias that drove the Church members out of the state. Tamma, Albert, and their 8 children escaped only to find themselves stranded with many others on the Iowa side of the Mississippi River. While waiting for rescuers, many became sick, including Tamma’s 7-month old daughter, Melissa. After sleeping for two weeks on the cold ground, Tamma and her family set off for Iowaville, some 65 miles away. Three days into their trek, their baby died and they had to bury her along the way. Then, Tamma herself became dangerously ill and was bedridden for 9 months. The family made it to Iowaville and remained there for a little more than a year. While there, exhaustion and exposure claimed the life of Tamma’s husband, Albert. At age 35, after 17 years of marriage, Tamma found herself a widow with 7 children.

She moved her family to Council Bluffs on Iowa’s western border where her mother and brother were. Two years later, in June 1850, Tamma acquired 2 wagons, teams, and provisions, and joined a wagon train headed for the Salt Lake Valley in Utah Territory. Shortly after their arrival, Tamma met and married, Enos Curtis, a family friend from Nauvoo. Enos was a widower, whose spouse had also died in Iowa during their journey west. Tamma was 37. During their first winter in the Salt Lake Valley, Tamma’s oldest son Orson became ill with a throat infection and died at age 17.

Enos and Tamma decided to help settle a new Utah community called Springville—a beautiful, fertile place where, despite early Indian problems, they established a farm and finally enjoyed a measure of peace and security. Tamma bore 4 more children, including a set of twin daughters, one of whom died when she was just 7 months old. Sadly, 4 months after their baby daughter died, Enos also passed away. Tamma was a widow for the second time and her 7 dependent children were fatherless. She and Enos had been married for less than 6 years. She was 43.

Not quite a year later, Tamma married again, this time to John White Curtis, Enos’s son. They also lived in Springville, where Tamma lived out her days. Together they had one child. Tamma and John were married for 28 years when she died in 1885 at age 75.

During her remarkable lifetime, Tamma lived in 15 different locations in 5 states and one U.S. territory, traversing more than 2,900 miles. Six of those moves were forced because of religious persecution and life-threatening mob violence. Tamma gave birth to 14 children, 5 of whom died—3 as infants and 2 before they were age 21. She married 3 times and was widowed twice. In addition to her own, Tamma helped nurture and raise 15 step-children.

Despite an extremely hard life of danger, deprivation, and sacrifice, Tamma Durfee Miner Curtis was unshakable in her devotion to God and her church, and she was unfailing in her love for her large family. Throughout it all, she was a tough, resilient pioneer…something her roosters knew quite well.

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This sketch of Tamma Durfee Miner Curtis’s life was prepared by her great-great grandson, James E. Hartley, based on an oral history of Norma Miner Hartley by William G. Hartley, October 11, 1973 (tape 1, transcript page 15); from documents and stories posted on FamilySearch for Tamma Durfee (KWJX-NPN), Edmund Durfee, Sr. (LVDG-SXB), Edmund Durfee, Jr. (KWVQ-7FT), Jabez Durfee (KWJZ-WGJ), Albert Miner (KWJR-FZ2), Enos Curtis (KWJR-PQC), and John White Curtis (KWJZ-48B); and from a description of the “Battle of Nauvoo,” from https://sites.lib.byu.edu/muw/2014/09/14/battle-of-nauvoo/.

My 3rd Great Grandfather - Edward Bunker, Sr.: Perpetual Pioneer

Edward Bunker, Sr.
1822 - 1901

This is a great tribute to my third-great grandfather, Edward Bunker, Sr., prepared by my own father, Jim Hartley. There are lots of lessons one can glean from this. However, I am particularly impressed with my great grandfather's sensitivity to divine guidance. Below are my father's words: 

Edward Bunker, Sr.: Perpetual Pioneer

Driven by a deep sense of mission and religious devotion, Edward Bunker, Sr. was a perpetual pioneer, who never seemed able to completely settle down. During his lifetime, Edward—

·       Crossed the 1,000-mile Midwestern prairies 5 times.

·       Enlisted in the U.S. Army for a 2,000 mile infantry march during the Mexican-American War.

·       After demobilization from the Army in San Diego, California, traveled 1,600 miles to retrieve his wife and son in Nebraska and take them to Ogden, Utah. (While traveling east through the Sierra Nevada Mountains, he helped bury the remains of the Donner Party’s rear wagon group).

·       Crossed the Atlantic Ocean twice to spend 3 years serving “without purse or script” as a Mormon missionary in England, Wales, and Scotland.

·       Led a handcart company of 320 Welsh immigrants across the rugged Midwestern prairie to their Zion in the Great Salt Lake Valley.

·       Helped settle six LDS pioneer communities including Ogden, Toquerville, and Santa Clara in Utah; Clover Valley and Bunkerville in Nevada; and Colonia Morelos in Sonora, Mexico.

·       Served three times as a Mormon bishop for a cumulative total of 26 years.

·       Faithfully entered plural marriage (polygamy) and supported three wives and 28 children. (Six of the children did not live to adulthood.)

Edward Bunker planted, cultivated, and built where no one had before. He survived persecutions, blizzards, floods, droughts, famines, epidemics, near-starvation, Indian raids, and even a vicious attack by a large herd of wild bulls. He negotiated with Indians, arranged coveted water rights with competing communities, and was an inspired religious leader and “father” to hundreds. He staunchly defended his beliefs when confronted with politics, practices, and doctrines that he could not support in good conscience.

In 1882, when Edward Bunker was nearly 60 years old, poor health was finally getting the best of him. He decided that he needed an extended trip into the Arizona Territory to regain his strength and, while there, he would visit relatives and friends. He was joined by his first wife, Emily (who was then 54 years old), their son Silas (nearly 19 years old), their daughter Loella (nearly 16 years old), and their youngest son, George (age 9). On April 4^th 1882, they loaded two wagons and embarked on a southerly route to Mesa.

After spending the summer in Mesa, they traveled for an additional 16 months visiting relatives and friends in at least 3 locations deep in the southeastern portion of Arizona—San Pedro (near St. David), San Bernardino Ranch (near Douglas, on the Mexican border), and Sulphur Springs Valley (about 50 miles northeast of San Pedro). Along the way, Edward also revisited some of the locations he passed through nearly 40 years earlier as an Army volunteer in the Mormon Battalion. But their travels in that region placed them squarely in the paths of outlaws, cattle rustlers, livestock smugglers, and renegade Indians.

In 1872, the U.S. Army drove the fierce Chiricahua [“Cheer-ah-COW-wa”] Apaches off of their traditional lands and forced them onto the San Carlos Indian Reservation near the southeastern border of Arizona. But, many of the Apaches refused to be confined there. Over the years, they staged numerous vicious attacks in eastern Arizona, western New Mexico, and northern Mexico. 

In 1882, Brigadier General George Crook was dispatched by the U.S. Army to subdue the Apaches and return them to the San Carlos Reservation. It took him 4 years to accomplish his mission. In his Resumé: Operations Against Apache Indians. 1882-1886, General Crook published this report on the Apaches:

“…the Chiricahua were the wildest and fiercest Indians on the continent; savage and brutal by instinct, they hesitated no more at taking human life, when excited by passion, than in killing a rabbit…. All efforts to conquer these tigers of the human race by force of arms, had been fruitless.”

In 1882 and 1883, when the Bunkers ventured near the San Carlos Apache Reservation, renegades by the names of Geronimo, Chief Juh, Na-tio-tish, Mangus, Natchez, and Chihuahua, were on the warpath throughout the region. They ruthlessly killed unsuspecting white and Mexican settlers and travelers, and stole their cattle, horses, and weapons.

In 1881, a small LDS settlement was started in Sulphur Springs Valley, less than 50 miles from the reservation. But, because of the danger from the Apaches, the settlement was abandoned in 1884. Despite the dangers, in 1883, Edward and his family spent several months there. Perhaps it was while traveling near Sulphur Springs that the Bunkers had their close encounter with the Apaches.

In the hot Arizona desert, the morning and evening hours were best for wagon journeys. One day during their travels, after stopping for supper, the Bunkers intended to travel a few more hours to a known watering spot where they would camp for the night. They loaded up both wagons. Everything was ready and everyone but Edward and young George were seated in the wagons. Suddenly, Edward announced, “We will not go on tonight.” After vigorous complaints and objections from Emily and the children, Edward repeated, “We are not going tonight.” That settled it. They unloaded the wagons and made camp where they were.

The next morning they moved on. A few hours later, as they approached the watering place where they had intended to camp the previous night, they saw smoke rising in the air. They found that Apaches had murdered a group of white people who had camped there and set fire to their wagons. The Bunkers were stunned by the realization that they would also have been victims of the massacre if Edward had not followed that strong impression the night before that told him to stay where they were.

Edward was a man who was close to God, and he had spent decades listening to those kinds of promptings. He knew from experience to follow them, even when they didn’t make any sense at the moment. By following this impression, he saved the lives of his family.

After 21 months in the Arizona Territory, Edward, Emily, Silas, Loelle, and George returned home safely to Bunkerville, arriving the day after Christmas, 1883.

But the fire of the pioneering spirit continued to blaze in Edward. In 1901, when Edward was 79, he and Emily, along with their son George and his family, moved from Bunkerville, Nevada to settle in a new LDS colony in Sonora, Mexico some 600 miles away. Sadly, later that same year, Edward died from a sudden illness and was buried at Colonia Morelos in Old Mexico, a pioneer to the end.

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Adapted by James E. Hartley from the Edward Bunker Family Association’s  Bunker Family History, Vol. 1, 1957 (edited by Josephine B. Walker, Delta, Utah); Gaylen K. Bunker’s Edward Bunker, A Study in Commitment and Leadership (2^nd Edition, 2011); FamilySearch, and various non-family historical resources.

Amazing Conversion Stories - James Houston

My previous entry was about the amazing conversion of Margaret Crawford Houston to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This entry is about her husband, James Houston (my 3rd great grandfather), who also had an amazing conversion to the church. James' story reminds me a little bit of the prophet Joseph Smith's own history and his own endeavor to find the truth. I am grateful for James' courage and the decision he made nearly 180 years ago, which no doubt has affected me for the better.

Below are James Houston's own words from his autobiography, which is available on FamilySearch.org (ID: KWBB-6WN):

James Houston Conversion

James Houston
1817 - 1864

I was brought up to be a silk (shawl) weaver. I saw a lot of trouble in my youth, and it caused me to reflect much of the things I saw and heard and I had a great desire to know the true way to be saved in the kingdom of God. I observed that all great men do not always agree on what is right. There was no use for me to try to find the way, still I had a desire to know.

One day I was at an election meeting where a priest was doing his best to explain his faith. I felt a desire to be with good people when they were gathered. The priest was speaking on the subject, "What To Do To Be Saved." I continued praying in my heart, when there was something that came over me that made me feel good all over. I did not say anything to others. I often thought about it, but did not know what it was. But I know now. The Lord heard my prayers and gave the answer -- that I would be shown the right way. I think I was about 14 years old.

I served four years as an apprentice silk-shawl weaver with my brother, John, just before he died. Shortly after his death he came to me one night in a dream. He asked me some questions and I asked him some. From that time on, things took a turn, although I can see many ways that the Lord opened up the way for me to understand the Gospel.

The Elders came to Paisley [Scotland] about the time I had the dream. I mean the Elders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints came. I was so engrossed in the company that I did not get to hear them. I went to their place one night and they would not let me in because they had been disturbed before.

So I got into conversation with one of their listeners who had been at the meeting the night before. He told me of an angel coming to Joseph Smith and what the angel said. The power followed the word and it ran through me from head to foot. I began to stand up for it and was surprised at myself.

I got a book, "The Voice of Warning," and began to read it, and the devil began to be mad. I did not know what was the matter. The man of the house where I lodged was a religious man, and when I read in the book and it was so good I would preach to him, and it would make him raving mad. He said all these things were done away with. He spoke of the things I could not understand and that made him very mad and me so pleased, but I was not to be put off  that way. I could not get rid of that feeling and would argue in the workshop until I was astonished at myself.

I sailed for America October 15, 1840 with a small company of saints. Everywhere I could see the same spirit against the saints. It confirms me more. After a pleasant journey of nine weeks, we landed at New Orleans, Mississippi, America, on December 2, 1840. We took a steamboat to St. Louis arriving December 17. (Elder Mulliner, the leader of the company, was unsuccessful in hiring a boat to take the company to Nauvoo and a number of the emigrants remained in Alton, Illinois until the following Spring when they reached Nauvoo in safety).

The Gospel had a great effect on my mind and I thought much. Brother Mulliner invited me home with him in Springnell, Alton, Illinois. I believed the Gospel but I thought I was not good enough to be baptized. I attended the meetings regularly. I was baptized 1841 and confirmed the same night in Springnell, Alton, Illinois.

I knew the gospel was true and I received the spirit according to the promise.