Chapter 8
Afterword
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Chapter 9
In 1891 Hans moved his family from Aurora to Bunkerville, Nevada. 1 Ane probably remained in Aurora with Parley or in her own home with Nora. It is possible that Hans and his family went to Nevada to escape continuing persecution from the marshalls. Even though a man was convicted for a crime related to polygamy, some were re-arrested and served again in the penitentiary. Some of Hans' fellow prisoners had served several sentences. The Manifesto was issued in 1890, but since the men did not give up their marriages and families, the prosecutors were still busy.
Hans and Matilda's youngest son, Alma, was born in Bunkerville on March 31, 1891. This small settlement is on the Virgin River, just below the present town of Mesquite. Several of his younger children wrote of their experience. Maria told her daughter: "The evening they arrived in Bunkerville, it was after dark. They made their beds which they quickly moved when they discovered they had made their beds on a bed of rattle snakes." 2 Maria also recalled: "This was a wonderful time for the children. The climate was very hot in the summer, warm enough to go barefoot, if you wanted to, in the winter. All kinds of fruit, vegetables, melons grew there. Even snakes and Indians. I saw my father cut a snake down that started up my sister's arm. She had picked a melon and the snake was under it. Father was irrigating close by. We raised sugar cane. They had a molasses mill there. We also picked cotton." 3 Josephine recorded: "time in Bunkerville was the happiest, most carefree and relaxing time we ever had. It was good going barefoot since shoes were very scarce." 4 Levi wrote: "I have a faint memory of living in Bunkerville, Nevada, where Alma was born. While living there this instance occurred. We kids were playing out under the bowery of our house when two men came down the road on horses, driving a bull. When they saw us, they told us to get in the house quickly. We hurried just as the bull came under the bowery." 5
They only stayed a year or so in Bunkerville. Anna Delilah records: "While living in Bunkerville he [Hans] had a partial stroke. He served a term in jail for obeying the law of plural marriage" 6 William, when he describes their return from Bunkerville, he calls it an exile: "My dear father had just returned from a trip south where he had been in exile for two years." 7 Wallace Sorensen gives more details: "During the polygamy raid, Grandfather and his second wife, Matilda and children moved to Bunkerville, Nevada, his son Parley moving them out there. Here they had to start a new home and they were very poor. While living in Bunkerville, Grandfather had a partial stroke and lost his voice. … it can truthfully be said he died a martyr to his religion, his death being caused by exposure while a prisoner." 8 Levi recalled some of the events at the time of their departure: "When we moved back to Utah, father loaded his family into a covered wagon with the other belongings he could crowd in. He hired a man and his outfit to haul part of our things. I was told later that this man's name was Wire Leavit. 9 As we came to the Virgin River, Mr. Leavit went first. He crossed all right, but as father got in the middle of the river, his wagon mired in the mud and we were stuck. He rolled his pant legs up above his knees and brought out his team out into the river and pulled us out. That night or the next, one of father's horses died." 10 David Sorensen, a son of Alma gave a little more information about the trip back to Aurora: "My father (Alma) was 18 months old, and his father was ill with influenza. My father's half-brother Parley drove an iron tire wagon 700 miles to Bunkerville, Nevada and back to pick up the part of the family what was living there. Grandfather was too sick to sit up, and my father was carried a great deal of the way on the shoulders of his half-brother Parley." 11 Since Alma was born at the end of March 1891, this puts the return trip at around October 1892. One related piece of information of note is that Alma's family has a tradition that Hans was in jail after their return from Bunkerville. While there are not any records found that indicate such an additional incarceration, it is possible that he could have spent some time in jail in those last six months of his life. Men were tried and convicted more than once for polygamy during this time. William's history records the return from Bunkerville after recording events in February 1893. The best we can guess is that they arrived between October 1892 and March 1893 from Bunkerville.
As Hans and his family returned to Aurora conditions were bleak. Anna Delilah's record says that Hans was in ill health and they probably were not faring well financially. William records: "He [Hans} was very feeble and could not take care of himself. My brother [Parley] has all he could do to support his family and look after our father." 12 Levi records: "As I remember, the first place we lived in after reaching Aurora was a little dug out, west of where the windy canal is now. We moved into this dug out with a widowed lady by the name of Bell Bromly. It consisted of one small room with a dirt floor and roof, no windows, one door with steps leading down into it. How it was heated or how they cooked I can't recall. I don't remember how long we lived there. The next place we lived in was a log home, my brother built for us north of town on a small farm." 13 This last referenced home was built for the family after Hans died, and was built by Parley for Matilda and her family.
As this story shows, this was a very difficult time for Hans, Matilda and the family. They were not alone in their suffering among their extended family, though theirs was probably the worst. Two others of Hans' children were also experiencing difficulties. Andrew William was living in Glenwood through this time. His wife, Mary Steffensen died in 1892, leaving him to care for three children. Their youngest baby died as a 2-week old infant one month prior to Mary's passing. 14 During that time, they tried to care for the baby of Mary's sister as well, who was having serious problems, but in the end, when Mary died, that child had to be given to someone else to be taken care of. Mary died on May 21, 1892. William was in debt and tried in vain to sell produce and decided that he needed to go to Nevada to sell his goods to get money to pay his debts. While he was in Nevada, selling to the miners, he got word that his 8 year old daughter, Carrie (Caroline), was near death with diphtheria. He traveled the 190 miles back home as quickly as he could. All of his children were afflicted with diphtheria. Carrie died before he was able to return. 15
Caroline, the daughter of Hans, was in Mexico at the time. Archibald Buchanan fled the United States a few years earlier in order to escape the marshalls and took Caroline, his fourth wife, and their children with him to live in Colonia Dublan. It was there that his youngest children, the twins Archie Earl and Carrie Myrl, were born on March 24, 1892. Caroline's history states that she and her husband did not live as man and wife after returning to Utah, in order to avoid continuing pressure from the marshalls.
Parley was now in living Aurora, closer to Hans, Matilda and the young children. From the above descriptions we see that he was very helpful. He moved from Koosharem, (or Grass Valley) to Aurora on 15 June 1890, 16 a few months after Hans was released from prison. A few months after this move, Parley and his wife, Emma Helquist buried their second child, Murthe Malenda on September 21 in Aurora. Parley Earvan, their first child died, also as an infant, back on October 2, 1888, in Koosharem. Their third child, Wallace was born in Aurora on July 11, 1891. Wallace lived long and wrote a history of Hans that is quoted several times in this document. As already mentioned, Parley helped the family move to Bunkerville and then upon their return to Aurora, helped make a home for them and watched over them.
As recorded at the beginning of this history, Hans died on April 6, 1893, the same day that the Salt Lake Temple was dedicated. William headed north to Salt Lake a few days before. He gives the most detailed description of Hans' poor health: "On the third day of April, 1893, I took my little daughter Lorena, she was then twelve years old, and started for Salt Lake City to attend a conference and the dedication of the Temple. On our way we visited my father. He could not speak to me. I told them where I was going and when I could get someone to take care of my children, I would go on my mission. He looked at me and smiled and nodded. … I prayed to God that he would heal my dear father or take him out of this world for he was in much agony" 17 Two different histories say that he had had a stroke. Whether that was while he was in prison or afterwards, it is not certain. What is certain, though, is that he died as a result of remaining faithful to the teachings of the church and the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
1. A history written by Maria "Ry" Sorensen Mason, unpublished.
2. Memory recalled by Thelma Mason Pollei. Interviewed in October 2011.
6. Poole, unpublished history.
7. Andrew William Sorensen history, p 20.
9. Note: A pioneer who lived in Bunkerville was named Alfred Weir Leavitt. He appears in the 1900 Census for Bunkerville. He was born 27 Dec 1860 at Mountain Meadows, Washington, Utah.
11. A history of Parley Peter Sorensen (1862-1927) written by Dorothy Day MacNiven, grand-daughter of Parley's and daughter of Lora and Jess Day, p 6.
16. Aurora Ward records, Family History Library, Salt Lake City, UT. Film 0025800, p 50.