James H. Porter

James H. Porter

Birth:  21 June 1875   Scipio, Millard, Utah Territory

Death: 1 May 1058   Tucson, Pima, Arizona

 

 James H. Porter Mission Picture. When he left on his mission he left 5 kids at home and two ranches to run. Stern but fun on picnics and trips. He loved his kids...Lorraine Porter Montgomery (his daughter)

 My Dad by Faye Porter Payne

    It seemed the breakfast table was our place to air our problems and make decisions. And there was always one whose word was final. He made the final decision. More often than not, that person would scoot his chair back from the table and say, "I'll just go fetch a bucket of clear cool water to start the day,". It amounted to saying, "I need some time alone to think this over." No one ever returned without a decision. Perhaps it was because along the way we observed that prolonged indecision is not included in nature's laws. Sunflowers wasted no time turning toward the sun. Mean tendrils got on, for better or worse be reaching toward the nearest supporting structure. When we argued and quarreled as children, Mother would say to one of us quarreling children, even if the bucket was half full, "Go fetch a bucket of clear, cool spring water. Peeved and pouty we would start out, but it was difficult to remain quarrelsome, angry after entering the grape arbor. Here peace was almost tangible. Years later Daddy drilled us a well--there was no longer any need to walk to the spring, but at certain moments each of us returned to the spring. When Uncle Joe Dad's favorite brother, came home from the hospital minus an arm, Mom reached for the water bucket and said, "I'll just walk down for a bucket of cool spring water." She came back calm and collected which was contagious for all of us. When terrible storms came and flattened the grain fields and tore the roof off the barn, Dad went to the spring and returned with exciting plans for replanting and rebuilding. I continued to draw water from the well, then one day I flared up over the undependability of the well. The pump didn't work. This made a trip to the spring necessary. Life changed for me. I began to feel insecure. People died--friends drifted away. Things I thought were true were disproved. I longed for something dependable--something I could take a stand on, start out from, return to and start again. I picked up the bucket, left for the spring. On this particular day, in the grape arbor, a mother robin was feeding her young. In the garden, radishes, mother had planted were thrusting up green leaves. Were robins and radishes absolute? As long as I had lived I remembered them. Something strained and tense within me began to unwind when I approached the spring and heard the calming music of the water that had been running day in and day out. How long? No one knows. So free--so forgiving. The spring was dependable. That's why we all came back to it. Just a dip of the bucket and then water. I was filled with growing peace and I wanted it to sweap away my doubts and it did. But even as it did I knew it was not the spring or the water; for a shift in the deep earth could end the spring. It was knowing that water was provided somewhere. It was not the robins for robins did not last forever. It was the immemorial act of the robin feeding her young, as robin mothers have been doing since robins were made. The act, a lasting and indestructible thing, an instinct not dissimulated by human hands. it was not the radishes, which were good only for two weeks. It was that radishes not beans were coming from the radish seeds. One could depend on it. The pump always remained a wonder for the family, but now years later and far away, whenever I return to the farm in spirit, I am rested and refreshed by the everlasting miracle of the spring and it's buckets' of clear cool water.

Faye Porter Payne   2^nd Row Far Right

 This history is recorded in his wife’s file - Rebecca Claridge Porter. 

 Jim is James Porter.  She tells how hard for him to go on a mission and leave 5 children and two farms.

Jim's Father owned two large freight outfits, sixteen horses on each. Jim would drive the freighted ore from Globe to Wilcox and they would be gone on one trip for about one month. We did really enjoy ourselves the few days that we spent together at the end of the trip when he was home. He would stop at our house when he came home from Globe with his three or four large wagons and sixteen horses. I would get up in the high seat with him and go home with him to Layton. He would clean up and then we would take his Mothers nice buggy and come back down to our house. It would just be two or three days and then he would be off again on another trip. Freight discontinued during the two years of our courtship and they sold their big outfits. Jim kept part of his and freighted in a smaller way. His Father went off and he kept his Mother, his sister Maude, and Harry, his little brother, until we were married. Of course our wedding was a grand affair. Jim's sister Maud and Karl Cluff were married the same time we were, only they were married the 15th of September and we were married on the 16th (1897). We had a big free dance together on the night we were married and what a night--it rained and such a flood we had to pay the musicians to play all night and everyone danced until morning as we couldn't get home. They had to take everyone home at daybreak in big wagons, there was so much water. Maud and I had wedding dresses alike, long white satin trimmed with wide silk lace, and long white veils which touched the floor, and orange blossoms. We had about 75 guests and had a big hot dinner at 6:00. I remembered Mother Hired Aunt Cynthia Layton to help cook the dinner. Of course we had a big dance that night and it was free for all. We lived with Jim's Mother for three or four months, until our home was fixed up. It was on the big ranch at Solomon Ville which George Foote and Jim had rented. Our home consisted of one room about 16 x 16. Our room was comfortable with a homemade carpet which I sewed the rags for before I was married and Mother had woven. We had a bed, stove, and Jim made a table and cupboard. We were very happy for all I had left a good home of eight rooms and everything comfortable. We lived there that year and in the spring just when our crops were ready to harvest, a flood came and took everything we had. All we came out with was a new machine Jim bought me as we were going to have a baby. In August he moved me down to Mothers where the baby was born (Vera August 3, 1898). We stayed there until Jim built us a one room lumber house on Fathers ranch, which Jim and Wilf rented that year. We moved down there in September 1898, just one year after we were married. Vera died that winter in January and in December 1899 (December 11, 1899) Lola was born in that home. In 1900 we moved to Bryce on 40 acres Jim bought. For the next several years Rebecca and Jim lived on this farm at Bryce. Three more children were born there. Faye, their third child, was born December 5, 1901. Their fourth child, and first son, Glen was born October 16, 1903. Their fifth child Priscilla Layton was born November 24, 1905. Transportation at this time was all by horse and buggy. Jim always had the best and prettiest horses pulling his carriage. It took them to and from church where Jim was in the Superintendence, and Rebecca a teach in the Sunday School. Since there were no stores in Bryce, they did all their shopping at Webb's store in Pima, across the river. At times this river would run so high they would have to use a boat to cross on. But it was the horse and buggy that regularly took them to Grandmother Claridge's for a visit. It wasn't infrequent that the buggy would get stuck in the quicksand as it tried to cross the river. In 1908 Rebecca and Jim moved to Thatcher. They bought the brick home on main street just across the street from Grandfather and Grandmother Samuel and Rebecca Claridge’s home. It was here that Lorraine, their sixth child was born on august 23, 1908. Shortly after this Jim was called to fill a mission for the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. With a family of five, it wasn't easy for him to accept but Rebecca encouraged him to go. Before leaving in September 1909 Jim rented out his farm in Bryce to help keep his family at home and him on a mission. Rebecca rented out rooms in the home to also help cover the expenses. Rebecca and her baby Lorraine accompanied Jim to Salt Lake City in order that she and Jim could go through the Temple and get their endowments. On January 30, 1898 James Porter and Rebecca Claridge Porter had been married for time and all eternity in a room set aside for this purpose in the Christopher Layton home in Thatcher, by Apostle John Henry Smith. This was an approved arrangement because of the difficulty of travel, and couples would later go to the Salt Lake City Temple to receive their endowments. Rebecca and Jim left their other children with the Claridge grandparents. Rebecca's brother Edward Claridge was called on a mission about the same time so he moved his wife Lillian and two children into two rooms of Rebecca's home, which made for a pleasant and enjoyable relationship for each of them. When Jim returned from his mission he moved the family back to Bryce. They farmed their place for one year, sold it and moved back to the home in Thatcher. It was here on November 8, 1913 that their seventh child Sybil was born, and on august 25, 1916 their eighth and last child Beth Lenore was born. In 1918 Jim bought the Ed Carpenter farm. They built a beautiful red brick home there. However, before it was completed in 1920, they had sold their other home. The family moved into the red brick school house just behind the present high school building on the north side. They lived here until they could move into their beautiful new home. The remainder of their lives were spent in this home and on this farm. Rebecca loved her beautiful new home. It was the center of the entire family’s activities. She maintained it as such even though she worked long in primary and Relief Society. At one time or another Jim was President of the Mutual Improvement Association, Superintendent of the Sunday School and Bishop of the East Ward at Thatcher.

This poem was written by James H Porter after Rebecca died. 

It did appear in the local newspaper along with the Obituary:

As long as I remember,

 love My heart has been your own

And to this very day I still Belong to you alone

How could I care for someone else?

In all the wide world blue

When there is really nobody To quite compare with you?

Nobody else could have your charm

Or your inviting smile And no one else could do so much

To make the life worthwhile

I loved you many years ago, and in the time between

The vision of your countless charms Have never left the scene

Oh let me take you in my arms, and hold you close to me

And blend today and every day, with our sweet memory.