Richardson family song (sung to tune of 10 little indians): Jay Richardson wrote in 1993

Once upon a time, in Arizona,
  at a dance hall they called Mezona,
  cupid went to work on Jay and Lavona.
  Soon they formed a family.

One by one came a great posterity,
  Eleven children to this family
  Taught each one faith, hope, and charity,
  In a royal generation.

First came the Becks, Miriam and Tony.
  Parents of Kasey, Skyler, Carrie
  Dallas, Colby, and finally Jamie
  All in a royal generation.

Marlene and Mark have a family named Ellingsons--
  Melanie, Bonnie, Jordan, and Dallin,
  Carl, and Gary, Rebekah, and Jaron,
  And Emily in a royal generation.

The Mortensens are Fred and Rauna,
  Adrianne, Erin, Carinne, and Parker,
  Nathan, Chelsea, and one in the hangar,
  Welcomed to a royal generation.

Joann and Robert form a family Hancock,
  Camille and Travis, Braden and Derek
  A new one soon, makes them all ecstatic--
  We love them in a royal generation.

Vernon and Connie are the Richardsons.
  Started with a daughter, named her Alison
  Melissa and Hyrum, we love each one of them.
  Added to our royal generation.

Now Ray, dear Ray, is always cheery,
  Always a dedicated missionary,
  Seeks a Ph.D. at the University--
  A star in our royal generation.

Now Kenneth's married to a lovely lady
  And Jenni's expecting a little baby.
  Soon he'll be through at the University.
  We love them in our royal generation.

Margie's studying recreation
  Something we need throughout our nation.
  When she graduates there'll be a celebration
  By the whole royal generation.

Now Melvin's in Russia as a missionary
  Braving the cold and the forces contrary.
  When he comes home we'll be so merry.
  Welcomed by this royal generation.

Dean, dear Dean, is our gentle giant.
  In marching band he's been compliant.
  As a missionary he'll be reliant.
  Supported by a royal generation.

Last, but not least, is our princess Amy.
  Outstanding athlete of our family.
  We love her in this great posterity.
  All of the royal generation.

Augusta Maria Outzen Smith

AUGUSTA MARIA OUTZEN SMITH 

(This is a copy of a sketch written by herself in 1920, twelve years before her death in 1932.  Augusta was Jesse N. Smith's fourth wife, Bruce Flake's paternal grandmother, and Lavona's great-grandmother. This was obtained from FamilySearch.org, contributed by Lina Flake Hatch.)

I am the daughter of Jens Christian Outzen and Martha Maria Christensen Outzen and the wife of Jesse Nathaniel Smith. I was born January 14, 1854 in the city of Randers, Denmark.

Father was born in Holms, Denmark and mother in Randers, Denmark. Father and mother belonged to the Christian Church, sometimes called the Lutherian Church. Father served in the War of 1848 - 50 between Denmark and Germany. He received the honor of Second Lieutenant. He also received a medal to be worn on the left breast with a red ribbon with white stripes. In 1852 or 53 father and mother were married in Randers, Denmark, and in 1854 I was born. We had a good home. Mother had some money received from her parents and before they were married father and grandfather Christiansen bought a city lot and built a house and furnished it with good homemade furniture. It was all complete - everything mother could wish for was there. Grandfather Christiansen was a good cabinet maker. He made all the furniture except one sofa and the chairs in the Parlor. Father was a good carpenter too. Grandfather served his apprenticeship with honor - took first prize in some of his work. We had a lovely garden with bushes and hedges and flowers and a large summer house with bushes and a table. We spent lots of our time in the Garden. Father took lots of pride in keeping our house in order and worked hard to make us all comfortable and happy. I started to school when seven years old. We had to go to school all the year. Just one month vacation in the summer. I helped mother take care of the babies and do the housework and I also helped knit the stockings for the children. I just love to sew and do fancy work. When I was twelve years old father took me out of the District School and put me in a private school where I studied the English language and took fancy work. My teacher's name was Miss Cofod. In the year of 1850 Apostle Erastus Snow and company brought the gospel over the sea to the city of Copenhagen and in the year of 1853 or 1854 it reached Randers. Father and mother went to some of the meetings and it wasn't long until they believed it was the true gospel but it was a year or more before they were baptized. And after that they soon lost all of their old friends. Father and mother were some of the very first to join the Latter-day Saints Church in Randers. Father helped the Elders to rent the first hall to hold public meetings in. It wasn't long before the mob gave them lots of trouble. At one meeting they threw stones and broke nearly all of the windows in the hall. They disturbed the meetings so they often had to be dismissed. At another time they broke the stairway down and father helped to pay the bill for repairing or helped to do the work himself. Father soon got the spirit of immigration, but was advised to stay a while longer to help care for the young missionaries. There were only a few married people at that time so they tried to be satisfied to stay. They were faithful and true to their religion and were very particular to pay an honest tithing and always made the Elders welcome to our home. It was a good resting place for them after traveling in the country for days and sometimes weeks at a time. They only had two children at that time, my brother Henry and myself. In the year of 1870, Father and mother and seven children left Denmark with the Emigration Company. Left Randers first of July for Copenhagen on the train and left Copenhagen on the 15th of July in a steamship to cross the North Sea, landed in Hull, England and then by train to Liverpool. My little sister, Ida, was very sick on that trip and died on the train before we reached Liverpool, England and was buried in that city. It was a great sorrow to us all to have to leave our dear little sister, especially for mother. She felt so bad. She had buried three children before in Denmark but never had I heard her complain. She felt satisfied that it was the will of the Lord. We rested in Liverpool a day or two and then we boarded the great Steamship called Minnesota. There were ten returning missionaries and nearly 600 emigrants. We reached New York in about twelve days, all in safety. Went by train to Salt Lake City the first emigration company that ever crossed the plains by railroad. Just before we reached Salt Lake City, President Young and Company came in the President's private car as far as Ogden to welcome the Saints. It was indeed a happy time for us to know that we had reached our future home in the land of Zion and with the people of God. I can see my father now, how happy he was to have his family out from the World that he had so long waited for. Soon after reaching Salt Lake City father moved his family to Parowan, Utah. There he worked hard to provide for his family. My brother, Henry, was as good as a boy could be to help him. They loved there two years then they moved to Richfield, Utah were they lived until they died. Mother died in the year of 1905 and father in the year of 1907 or 8. They had twelve children, seven girls and five boys. I was married to President Jesse Nathaniel Smith in the year of 1869, the 3rd of June, in Denmark. Went through the Endowment House and was sealed to my husband on the 15th of August, 1870. My husband then had two other wives, Emma S. and Janet M. They were good and kind to me and I loved them like sisters. We each had a large family of children. I lived ten years in Parowan, Utah in a good, comfortable home. We were happy and contented. Why shouldn't we be? We had the dearest and best husband in the world and the best children. In the year of 1878 Brother Smith was called to go to Arizona to preside over the Eastern Arizona Stake of Zion and so he moved part of his family to Snowflake, Arizona. He helped organize this stake and all the wards in this stake and took an active part in building up this new country. He built a comfortable log house and raised a very good crop of wheat and in the fall of 1879 he came back to Parowan after being absent nearly one year. We were glad to see him. He attended the Legislature in Salt Lake City 1879-1880 and in the spring of 1880 he moved the rest of his family to Snowflake, Arizona. We had a long and hard journey out here but we liked our new home and were thankful to be all together again. We had some good new tents to sleep in. We had plenty of fresh air and we had good health and were happy. Brother Smith with a company of men took a contract on the railroad the summer of 1880. For weeks and weeks at a time there was hardly a man in Snowflake, just enough to preside over the meetings and Sunday Schools. Everybody went to meetings and we had good times. The work on the railroad was taken to provide for the people. We had plenty of wheat but no mills to grind it on. In the fall when the folks came home they brought provisions, shoes and cloth for the family for the winter. Aunt Emma and Sadie went with Brother Smith to cook for him and the boys. Our Relief Society was organized soon after we came here and I was chosen as one of the first teachers in the Snowflake Ward. I worked faithfully in the capacity for 25 or 30 years. We were blessed with eleven children, two sons and nine daughters. All lived to become men and women and faithful in the church. My dear husband died in Snowflake in the year of 1906. He was 71 years old. Our dear daughter, Anna, died in the year of 1910, 26 years old and our dear son, Robert, died this year, 1920, 45 years old. God bless their memory.

Price Williams Nelson Biography

PRICE WILLIAMS NELSON (Source: http://www.angelfire.com/ne/hoopesgenealogy/pricewillimsnelson.htm


Price Williams Nelson (Verna Nelson's paternal grandfather, Jay Richardson's great-grandfather) was born on November 17, 1822 at Monroe County, Illinois or possibly across the river in the new settlement Keokuk, Iowa. His parents were Edmond Nelson and Jane Taylor and he was named after his father's Uncle Price Williams. Shortly after his birth, his parents moved to Jefferson County, Illinois, where they lived until he was about 14 years of age.


Price Williams was a hard working boy and he became a rather retiring, and very quiet young man, but always willing to lend a hand. He loved to swim and hunt and enjoyed helping his uncles with their ferryboats. In the spring of 1836 his father was baptized into the Mormon Church and then followed the Church movement to Missouri. Price was baptized in 1837, when he was 15 after spending the winter suffering from rheumatic fever.


The Nelsons continued to stay with the Saints and underwent the terrible persecutions inflicted upon them. When the rest of his family started west, Price and his brother, Hyrum, remained behind to work on the steamboat. About four years later he drove his Aunt Martha's team west and joined his father's family at Council Bluffs and crossed the plains with them.


Bishop James Lake was appointed captain of a company of fifty wagons, including Price's. Price's younger brother, Thomas, describing the journey, wrote "we all enjoyed the travel with the Saints across the plains. My brother Price Williams stood guard all the way across the plains. But we had plenty of good men and good women, and lots of young folks and plenty of good singers, plenty of music and lots of preaching, lots of good singing and praying. We entered Salt Lake a happy band of Saints."


Bishop Lake's daughter, Lydia Ann, told of the bravery of Price Williams on the trip: "The most vivid event of the journey occurred at Green River, Wyoming. In crossing the river a wagon box floated off and began drifting down stream. In the box were a young woman named Snider and a girl about nine years old. All was excitement for a few minutes. The only man of the company who dared to swim the stream and effect a rescue was Price Williams Nelson. Up to that time I had paid no particular attention to him. After this event we became better acquainted. We were married on the last day of the year of 1850 in the old Fort at Ogden. Of the many things said at that time, the prophetic utterance of my father proved the most true. He said, 'Price is a good man, but he will never be content anywhere.'"


The newlyweds moved to San Bernardino, California in June of 1852. They moved from there to Payson, Utah and then to Franklin, Idaho, then to Logan, Utah where Price ran a sawmill. Then Price was called on a mission to settle the Muddy Mission in Southern Nevada, but due to troubles with the Nevada government, they moved to Glendale, Utah. He was called to settle Arizona. Price worked at Lee's Ferry, then moved to Moencopi, where they were among the first settlers there. They moved to Pine Creek, near Payson, Arizona, where they went into ranching and had a good home. It was while they were living there that Price Williams and his family traveled to St. George to have his family sealed in the temple there. He was the father of thirteen children. Then they moved to Cave Valley in Mexico, where Price set up a grist mill. After a few years he moved to Oaxaca, Sonora, Mexico and made a home about five miles up the river from town.


In describing Price, a niece, Lora Nelson, said that Price Williams was never talkative. He loved pioneering and always lived on the frontier. He was always straight as an arrow. He wore his black hair quite long and cut straight across the back. He was extremely particular about his dress, especially his shirts. They had to be tucked just right in front. He also loved to give his grandchildren nicknames like Squint, Skunk, and Pocahontas, and he enjoyed entertaining the children as soon as they were old enough to follow him around.

He had good health and seldom complained of ailing until he got dropsy. In the fall of 1902 Price's heart began to fail and his legs were badly swollen, so his family was summoned. There was no doctor within one hundred fifty miles. After they thought he was dead and had left the room, they heard a noise. He had rallied and asked them to help him sit up. He then admonished them to do better, to live better lives, and to attend to their duties. He told them to love one another and always be kind to each other. After he had given his family this blessing, he relaxed and died. This was on October 27, 1902, during this 80th year.

Morten P Mortensen Missionary Experience

Missionary Experience

By Brittany Whetten 

The Sandinavian Mission was opened in the spring of 1850. In the first few years after the mission was opened many people did not accept the gospel. Many of its first Elders were often mobbed, beaten and any who joined the church were shunned and ridiculed. Morten himself was never beaten or mobbed, but one brother, Jens Jensen, whom he labored with was. Jens Jensen was taken by a mob into a nearby forest and beaten so severely he was left for dead. His bones were broken in many places. Elder Jensen said, "An angel came and blessed him, and he felt the bones take their normal place while he was being blessed. He was healed immediately and went on about his work." He was still left with many scars from the incident which showed how badly the bones had been broken. Emma Mortensen visited him in his home years later in Colonia Pacheco in 1890, when he told her of the incident and showed her the scars on his legs. She said they looked as if they had been broken into inch-long pieces by the many lumps and scars from the knees to the ankles. 

*The story was taken from "The Morten P. Mortensen Family" by Viva Cluff Whetten and Lillian Jones Richins, page 52.

A Miraculous Provision of Water

By Sully Richardson

Charles Edmund Richardson, called by the Church to act as Attorney-at-law for the Saints in the Mormon Colonies in Chihuahua and Sonora, was on his way to attend a court session at Chihuahua City where his absence might be disastrous to the colonization project. While driving the jaded team and its lone buckboard, he pondered the importance of his mission to Chihuahua City. He was traveling in a cloud of choking dust across the northern Chihuahua desert between Colonia Diaz and El Paso del Norte (Ciudad Juarez), the nearest railroad connection to Chihuahua City. The little mare in the team sagged dangerously under the intense heat and her need of water. “Come on, Nellie old girl, don’t give up,” Edmund cajoled the little mare. “Another mile will bring us to the half-way watering hole. I marvel that your keen nostrils have not already caught the scent of life-giving water. I promise you water, feed, and rest before pushing into the last half of the trip to catch the train.” However, half hour later, to his great surprise and dismay, Edmund found the water-hole as dry as the desert over which they had just passed. While the horses nibbled over the corn in their nose-sacks, too thirsty to eat, Brother Richardson dug for water in the tank floor, only to find it as dry as the surface. He was in serious straits. The distance either way was too far to drive a thirsty team. There was only one source from which he could receive help and he knelt beside the buggy wheel seeking it. He told the Lord his condition and that he had to have water for the horses. He explained the trouble it would mean for the Saints if he missed the court session and the appointment with the Mexican Attorney in Chihuahua City. He acknowledged his dependence upon the Lord and in behalf of the Colonists asked for help. Upon rising to his feet, he noticed a small cloud just above the western horizon. This increased in size as it traveled across the sky until it was directly over his head, and then rain fell like a cloud-burst until the watering hole was full and running over into the creek. After watering his team and filling his water barrel, he thanked the Lord and was soon on his way. About a hundred yards from the water-hole he found the ground as dry as it was before the rain and the sky as innocent of clouds. He caught the train and won the case in court. ___________ Source: Annie R. Johnson, “Heartbeats of Colonia Diaz”, Mesa, AZ (1972), pp. 409-410.