Chris & Julie Petersen's Genealogy

Maria Josephine Hales

Female 1859 - 1940  (80 years)


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  • Name Maria Josephine Hales 
    Born 3 Oct 1859  Spanish Fork, Utah, Utah, United States Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Gender Female 
    Died 15 Feb 1940  Kilgore, Clark, Idaho, United States Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Buried 19 Feb 1940  Rigby Pioneer Cemetery, Rigby, Jefferson, Idaho, United States Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Person ID I165  Petersen-de Lanskoy
    Last Modified 27 May 2021 

    Father Charles Henry Hales,   b. 17 Jun 1817, Rainham, Kent, England Find all individuals with events at this location,   d. 1 Jul 1889, Spanish Fork, Utah, Utah, United States Find all individuals with events at this location  (Age 72 years) 
    Mother Julia Ann Lockwood,   b. 10 Aug 1824, Canandaigua, Ontario, New York, United States Find all individuals with events at this location,   d. 18 Feb 1903, Spanish Fork, Utah, Utah, United States Find all individuals with events at this location  (Age 78 years) 
    Married 31 Oct 1839  Quincy, Adams, Illinois, United States Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Family ID F127  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

    Family Anders Jensen,   b. 9 Feb 1854, Ørslev, Holbaek, Denmark Find all individuals with events at this location,   d. 2 Jul 1938, Rigby, Jefferson, Idaho, United States Find all individuals with events at this location  (Age 84 years) 
    Married 4 Dec 1879  Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah, United States Find all individuals with events at this location 
    Last Modified 28 May 2021 
    Family ID F161  Group Sheet  |  Family Chart

  • Notes 
    • RESEARCH_NOTES:
      1. Censuses:
      1860 US: Spanish Fork City, Utah, Utah, p. 229, 23 Aug 1860, family 1629:
      Charles H. Hale, 48 farmer, $300, $800, Eng.
      Julia A., 35, NY.
      Frances, 23, Eng.
      George G., 17, laborer, IL.
      Mary J., 13, IA.
      Charles H., 11, IA.
      Joseph L., 9, IA.
      John T., 7, UT.
      Stephen F., 5, UT.
      William, 2, UT.
      Maria J., 7/12, UT.
      Lucy E., 3, UT.
      Mary, 4/12, UT.

      1870 US: Spanish Fork, Utah, Utah, 3 Aug 1870, p. 24:
      Family #172:
      Charles H. Hales, 51, farmer, $750, $600, England.
      Julia A., 45, keeping house, NY.
      Joseph L., 19, at home, IA.
      John T., 17, at home, UT.
      Stephen F., 14, at home, UT.
      William P., 12, at home, UT.
      Josephine, 10, no occupation, UT.
      Jonathan, 9, at home, UT.
      Harriet E. 6, at home, UT.
      Family #173:
      Frances E. Hales, 31, keeping house, England.
      Lucy E., 12, no occupation, UT.
      Mary A., 10, no occupation, UT.
      James L., 8, at home, UT.
      Charles A., 7, at home, UT.
      Caroline E, 5, at home, UT.
      Franklin H., 2, at home, UT.
      Harmon, 9/12, UT.

      1880 US: Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah, FHL film 1255338, NA film T9-1338, p. 195D:
      Andres Jenson, farming, M, 35, Den, Den, Den.
      Josephine Jenson, keeping house, wife, M, 20, UT, Eng, NJ.

      1900 US: St. Johns, Apache, Arizona, pp. 16b,17:
      Andres Jensen, Feb 1854, 46, m. 20 years, Den Den Den, emigrated 1863, farmer.
      Josephine, wife, Oct 1859, 40, m. 20 years, 9 total children with 7 living, UT Eng NY.
      Annie, dau., Sep 1880, 19, S, UT Den UT.
      George, son, Mar 1882, 17, AZ Den UT.
      Hariett, dau., Apr 1884, 16, UT Den UT.
      Eunice, dau., May 1886, 14, AZ Den UT.
      Maurice, son, Sep 1888, 11, AZ Den UT.
      Leslie, son, Jul 1891, 8, AZ Den UT.
      Andrew, son, Jan 1896, 4, AZ Den UT.

      2. Some family group sheets show name as Mariah Josephine Hales; however, her name appears as Maria Josephine in the live temple ordinances.

      BIOGRAPHY:
      1. In the execution of father's last will and testament, this individual shown as living at St. Johns, Apache, Arizona on 22 Jun 1889.

      2. In John T. Hales' obituary of 29 Jun 1926, this individual showing as living in Rigby and name of Josephine Jensen. In the obituary of Joseph L. Hales of 3 May 1923, this individual noted: Mrs. Josephine Jenson of Rigby, Idaho.

      3. From: C. Kent Jensen 26 Aug 2002. "History of Anders and Josephine Hales Jensen, a history condensed and modified by Ruth M. Jensen, from the history written by their son, Charles H. Jensen: Anders Jensen and Josephine Mariah Hales were married on December 4, 1879 in the Endowment House in Salt Lake City. She was born and raised in Spanish Fork, Utah. He was born in Denmark and immigrated to the United States when he was nine years old, coming with his family to live in Spanish Fork, Utah. After their marriage they moved into a small log house that Anders had built with the help of friends. The furnishings were humble - a box made a cute little cupboard and boxes were for chairs. Anders then started to build a new home. He had the foundation in when 'at this time, Father, with a group of others including his brother Lars was called by the President of the Church to help settle Northern Arizona. This was in the spring of 1881. This was a great surprise and a big decision had to be made; great sacrifice would be involved. They were just getting a good start. He and Josephine decided to talk the matter over with her father, Charles Henry Hales. He told them to go, that it was the Lord's will and it was a mission for them to fill.' At this time they had one child, Julia Ann Jensen. With horses and a wagon they left to go to Arizona. 'It was very hard for Josephine and her Husband to leave family and friends and especially Josephine's Mother who was so gravely ill that the doctor gave little hopes. Then to add to the sorrow of parting was fear and apprehension in the memory of a tragedy which occurred some years earlier to Josephine's sister Isabel and her husband and his brother at Short Creek in the spring, Sunday, 2nd April 1866 (known as the Berry Brothers Massacre). Robert Berry and wife went to Spanish Fork to spend the winter and in the spring Isabel gave birth to a baby girl. It died with diphtheria. These events made them miss the company that was going that direction. So at this time they decided to go alone against the warnings and pleading of their relatives and friends. So after making preparations and arrangements they started and within a day's travel they were attacked and killed. William S. Berry, a brother, knew the time they left, and when they didn't arrive he got worried and saddled his horse and started out to meet them. On the way he stopped at a grassy spot and let his horse rest and eat. He sat up against a tree and dozed to sleep, and the whole affair that was taking place with his brothers seemed to pass as a panorama before him. So he hurriedly mounted his horse and rode in the direction that he felt he would find them... He met a friendly Indian who told him what had happened and where he would find the bodies...' On their journey to Arizona, the Jensens crossed the Colorado river at Lee's Ferry and then went up a steep dugway called Lees Back Bone. After stopping for a short noon meal on this dangerous and narrow road Anders said a prayer and asked God to protect them and prayed that their team would take them safely out of this deep gorge. After long days of travel they reached their destination, a settlement called St. Johns, Arizona. They at first lived in town then moved to a one room house 'in the field' and 'years later built a nice brick home.' Anders had several jobs, including guard at the jail 'to prevent prisoners, such as rustlers and horse thieves, from being lynched. He had a job up at the reservoir to keep drift wood out so that the dam wouldn't break. For this he was payed forty dollars per month.' Good pay for that time, but it left his family alone most of the time. 'He also did a lot of freighting, furnishing supplies from Holbrook to St. John's, a distance of sixty miles and also to Fort Apache which was one hundred miles away. They said that he was so covered with dust that he looked like a grey statue at times.' Neighbors were good to help Josephine when Anders was gone. Her second Child, George, was born during this time. 'She was up and around with her little son when Anders came home from a freighting trip... There was very little money. Everything was traded or exchanged for work. The deacons would visit the home of the Saints and ask for tithing and fast offerings. Josephine would send the best of her chickens and eggs, the best of the garden vegetables for offerings. On one occasion she did not have anything to give so she told them if they would accept them she would give a nice pair of shoes she had just bought. So they gave her ninety cents credit for the shoes. Josie had been used to going without. She was the tenth child in a family of twelve children. As a child she had only one dress and she would have to go to bed while her mother washed it. She had very little schooling but she was a brilliant person. In the fall of 1883 she wanted to go back to Spanish Fork to her home to be with her mother for the birth of her third Child, Hattie. They spent the winter there and returned in the spring to Arizona... The Indians would visit the home frequently when Anders was away. Josie was nervous and never let them in the house. She would hand them a loaf of bread or things that would satisfy them. This was a hard life for a woman, especially a nervous type like Josie and it is no wonder that she had a severe nervous breakdown. The ladies of the ward helped care for her and the family until a year later when she was able to care for herself and family.'To continue with the story as told by Charles Henry Jensen: 'One evening after Anders had gone to bed Josie looked toward the corral as was her habit before she went to bed herself. This nite as she looked toward the corral she saw a light and as she watched it, it came toward the house and she continued to watch it, it kept coming and when it got so close she got scared and shut the door. A few days later they got word that her brother had passed away. [This brother, as near as I can tell, would have been Charles Henry Hales, Jr. who died on 15 March, 1898. He is the only brother who died during the time when the Jensens lived in Arizona.–RMJ]. Josie would get up at four o'clock and work in her garden while her children slept. She had a beautiful garden and grew much of their food. On one acre she would raise sugar cane which made a forty gallon barrel of molasses, which they used on the table and for candy. One morning she heard the chickens cackling and when she went to investigate she found a big blow snake curled up in the nest. She found a large stick and killed the snake, but she also broke all the eggs, so they had no eggs for breakfast. There were no fences so the children had to herd the cows. The girls spent their time chasing lizards and horny toads. One night they caught some and took them home and sold them for ten cents each. They went barefooted most of the time, but as they grew older and went to Sunday School their shoes would get shabby, so Josie would take the lid off the stove and mix soot with a little butter. This was their shoe polish and when it dried and was polished they looked much better. One day Josie went to Relief Society. She asked her three girls, Annie, Hattie and Eunice to watch the baby, Charles, and not to let him get near the river (Little Colorado). But after she had gone, the girls, like any other kids, wanted to play and pretty soon they discovered that Charles was missing and they ran for the river and found baby Charles sitting in a red ant bed covered with ants and screaming. They grabbed him and started brushing the ants off and took him to the house. He had a little red face and a runny nose and was still screaming when a friendly Indian woman came in and wanted to help. She got some alfalfa and squeezed the juice out of it and rubbed it over him. Pretty soon it relieved him and when Josie came home she rubbed olive oil over him –- this seemed to do the job. The three girls got a Scotch blessing with a promise that she wouldn't trust them again... During this period of time Anders bought a small calf here and there. In this way he obtained a small herd of cattle. So he decided to homestead some land up at Hunt for a cattle ranch. This was sixty miles from home. He cut some trees for lumber and built a one room cabin as shelter for himself and for any of the family that came to visit. His health was good but his eyesight was very poor; but, he continued working hard, struggling to get ahead.' Charles remembers going into Saint Johns with his father and his brother Anders, himself riding in the back of the wagon and Anders and his Father on the spring seat in front. Part way there 'I noticed a team and a wagon going toward Saint Johns just as fast as they could run'. He commented to his father and his brother about it and Andrew, his brother said, 'I bet the resivior's (sic) broke.' He records, 'As the reservoir had sprung a leak sometime previous, they had been watching it quite closely. As we got to Saint Johns there was a fellow on a horse who rode through the town shooting his six shooter and yelling, 'The resavior's broke.' This created a lot of excitement and the people started running in all directions. We hurried home and father got the rest of the family in the wagon and took us to the neighbors, who lived on higher ground. I remember we all stood outside and watched the flood water go by. Every now and then we would see boards and other debris floating by. Someone said, 'There goes the roof of a house!' I can't remember much about going back to the house, but Eunice [an older sister of Charles] said that it could be seen by the high water marks that there had been fourteen inches of water in the house. She said there was a lot of mud on the rugs and carpets. Father didn't get a chance to save any of the small animals, as we had to get away fast. The pigs, chickens and rabbits were all drowned. The larger animals went to higher ground and saved themselves. I imagine Father was heart sick, as all the alfalfa was covered with mud and I suppose the rest of the crops would have been the same. Without water for irrigation, things must have looked pretty discouraging. Eunice writes that Father got a release from the Church and for only $800 he sold everything except six head of horses, two wagons and what household furnishings they could take. Their nice brick home was also left behind. We then started on our way back to Utah, to seek a new home. The family at this time consisted of Father and Mother, Annie, George, Hattie, Eunice, Maurice, Leslie, Andrew and myself. Annie, George and Hattie who were working away from home remained behind. Some time later Hattie and Annie followed the Folks to Idaho but George remained in Arizona where he went into the cattle business... The date of our departure was July 12, 1905*, and at that time I was a lad of five. As we got to the top of the hill leaving the town in the distance we turned to each other and said: 'We'll never see Saint Johns again.' We stopped at the Long H Ranch, which was a short distance from Navajo: then continued on our journey day after day.' He tells how at one point his father and the older boys went to try to find water for the horses, leaving his mother, Eunice and himself at camp. Andrew and Charles were playing at the end of the wagon tongue when their mother saw three Indians coming. She 'grabbed' him and took him to the wagon, leaving Andrew to follow. But he was probably too surprised to run. Later, Andrew was to say that he felt slighted because 'Mother left me there for the Indians to get.' The long, arduous journey continued. Old 'Bruno', the family dog was rescued from the hot sands which were burning his feet and making them sore as 'Mother and Eunice made moccasins of canvas and tied [them] on his feet.' They stopped in Kanab, Utah and stayed for two days with a fellow from Saint Johns who lived there, to let the horses rest. They then went on to Spanish Fork, Utah where 'Dad and Mother were raised and where all their brothers and sisters and friends lived.' They stayed there for three weeks. The next leg of the journey was to take them to the Snake River country near Idaho Falls, Idaho. Unfortunately, they went with a fruit peddler they met who said that he knew the way, but 'this 'guided tour' that the peddler took us on was several hundred miles out of the way. We arrived in Basalt on the 25th of September, nineteen-hundred and five,* where we stayed until next spring.' [*Note: Charles recorded the date as 1905, but his brother, Andrew, recorded in his history that they left Arizona in 1904; I'm not sure which is correct.—RMJ] Charles continues: 'I can't remember much about the trip to Rigby [Idaho]. Father bought a forty-acre farm three miles east of Rigby.' They lived in a two room log house on this farm 'with a dirt roof that had the appearance of being put together in the dark. The door casing was so low that you would bump your head unless you stooped when entering. It was crudely furnished on the inside, but it was home. I doubt if anybody ever had a home and appreciated it any more than we did that little log house. We loved it even though the roof did leak when it rained and we had to put pans around here and there to catch the water. Father got busy and start building pens, coops and sheds for cows so we could start raising our food. Mother with her brood started getting a garden planted. There wasn't enough water to irrigate the farm, so Father... bought some more. Things went along pretty good for the next few years; then Mother got sick and couldn't sleep. She was very sick for six or eight months... Father got to talking to a new druggist who had been in town a short time, and he mixed up some medicine so that she could sleep. It wasn't very long until she started to improve and, within a couple or three months, she was okay again. How thankful we were.' A short time later Anders felt it was time for the Jensens to have a new home so he contacted Frank Cloward, a carpenter. Anders and Mr. Cloward planned concerning size, style and so on. And a short time later the house was built and the Jensen family move in. Charles says of his father, Anders: 'He was honest and a hard worker.' He also states, 'We only had a forty acre farm and there just wasn't enough volume from a farm that size to justify modern machinery, so many things were were done with what we had to work with... We all worked hard on the farm raising alfalfa, grain, potatoes and sugar beets. Maurice and Leslie went together and bought a forty-acre farm adjoining Fathers'... Father was very pleased that they bought a farm so close to his.' When the children were grown and Andrew was married, Anders turned the farm over to Andrew and his new wife, Kathleen, and bought a home in Rigby. Quoting more from the history by Charles H. Jensen, their son: 'Dad and Mother were wonderful folks. I remember on one occasion they were going to visit their folks in Salt Lake and Spanish Fork. As they were coming down on the train someone picked Dad's pockets and took all their money. Bless their dear hearts! Instead of being belligerent and moody, they joked about it.'
      He continues, 'There was another visit with the folks that I shall never forget. We were talking about the gospel and what it could mean to people who live it. They were telling of freighting in their earlier days in Arizona. Dad told of how they were camped by an old abandoned house. They probably picked this place because it afforded them some shelter. Then, Dad couldn't compose himself, so Mother went on with the story. When they got up before daylight the next morning, one of the freighters was very ill and couldn't harness his horses. One fellow suggested they leave him there and he could come on when he felt better. The group decided that this wasn't the thing to do. Then someone suggested that they have a prayer circle, so they formed the circle inside the house and offered up a prayer in his behalf. But it didn't seem to do much good. The house was open, the doors were gone and the cattle had been using it for shelter. It was rather a filthy place. Then someone suggested that they move outside. They decided to sing a song before they offered another prayer, and Mother sang this song before she went on with the story. Then Mother said, as they prayed in their circle 'a light beyond the brightness of the sun appeared over that little group.' I turned to Father and said, 'Dad, did you see the light?' And his reply was, 'You bet I did.' His chin was quivering and the tears were streaming down his face as he told of how this teamster got up, harnessed his horses and went on with the group. 'As I looked at them that evening, Dad was terribly bent over, nearly blind. Mother hobbled around, her hands were badly crippled, her fingers very disfigured and bent out of shape from the pains of arthritis. She must have suffered terribly for many years to get in this condition. I couldn't help but think of the trials and hardship that these two people who had been pioneers, who had gone through so much together, could grow old together and endure to the end. I am sure they are enjoying the home they built in Heaven while serving on their twenty-four year mission in Arizona, together with the good life they lived."

      DEATH:
      1. Ancestry.com's "Idaho Death Index, 1911-51": Josephine Maria Jensen, 1940, certificate no. 118073, city: Kilgore, county: Clark, b. 3 Oct 1859, d. 15 Feb 1940.

      SOURCES_MISC:
      1. Per www.hales.org 21 Dec 2002.

      2. Nauvoo LDS Land and Records Office research file (copy in my possession as of 2 Jun 2007 and also partially viewable at www.earlylds.com). Includes family group sheet only.