This will be extracts from a short history of Joseph's and Rose's father William, the man Brigham Young asked (along with Apollos Boaz Lambson and others) to help settle St. John's, Arizona when it was still part of the Utah Territory (before either Utah or Arizona were states).

While in his teens, William was "bound out" for three or four years as an apprentice wheelwright, to a Quaker named Fry. Quaker Fry and his wife were people of high moral character and the years William lived in their home were pleasant and profitable and he always held them in high regard. From Quaker Fry he learned to make wagons, carriages, etc. He became a wheelwright and carpenter. He also gained considerable training in farming and horticulture because the Fry family had a farm and orchard. He lived with this family several years.

We do not know how he heard the Gospel nor where he was baptized. On the 8th of December he married Mary Anne Vincent. He was 29 years old and Mary Anne was 22, they were both of Bassaleg, Wales. Their married life was very brief. We also have in his own writing the dates on which a son was born, and the dates his child and his wife died... This is how William recorded it on the inside cover of a small book that belonged to Mary Anne. "Marey Ann Stradling daied August 20th 1854 on Sunday morning at half past one. Elijah Charles Stradling was born August 11th 1854 on Friday at 2 o'clock after noon. Daied August 16th 1854 at three o'clock morning." 

It seems probable that he crossed the plains to Utah in the Isaac Allred company which arrived in Salt Lake City in November 1855. According to an entry in a book of immigrating Saints for the season, "38 wagons, 62 souls arrived in Great Salt Lake City; Isaac Allred, captain. Some wagons, which had to stop over at Green River, arrived on the 13th." He gave the money he had saved to the Brethren to assist the poorer emigrants to outfit themselves for crossing the plains and was told he would be given employment when they reached the Valley. He drove a two yoke ox team on the journey. The job he was offered at Salt Lake City, was driving an ox team and hauling timber out of the mountains. He didn't think that was much of a job for a first class mechanic and refused it, saying he needed a little change of occupation any way. 

William was an industrious man and always had plenty of work to do, "for himself and kindred too, ere the sun went down." He helped build a sawmill at Spanish Fork. He and a blacksmith, Nels Nelsen, built the first harrow used in the valley and he and Thomas Cook brought the first threshing machine into Provo. Besides working at his trade of wheelwright he engaged in farming and fruit raising. He acquired 14 acres of land in Provo Second Ward, in the southwest part of town. The original old Provo Fort was on part of his land. He had a 40-acre farm in the Fort field, two 10-acre tracts and a 40-acre pasture down by the Utah Lake. On October 1 1856, William married Sophia only daughter of James and Sophia Bush. She was seventeen years old, William was 32. 

In the early days at Provo, William and Sophia had to travel a long way to get wood for fuel and posts to fence their land. In mid winter Utah Lake would freeze so that teams and wagons could cross over it on the ice, and they frequently made trips to the west side for wood and posts. It was a risky business, but the distance around the lake was so great that they took chances of losing their outfits and maybe their lives, and traveled over the ice. Sometimes the ice would crack with a loud report, and the oxen sensing danger would run for the shore, the ice bending under the weight of the outfit and water coming through the cracks to a depth of several inches. 



William and Sophia was very comfortably situated in Provo and expected to stay there permanently. They owned their own home, orchards, farms, and pasture land. They were happy in their church and community life. Provo was a friendly community, growing and progressive. Prior to 1881 the First Presidency of the Church began to call upon families in the settlements of Utah to go out and help colonize other places. William was asked to go to St. Johns, Arizona, a new settlement on the Little Colorado River in northeastern Arizona. So he had to pull up the stakes they had so patiently and laboriously driven in the soil of Utah, abandon property, hopes, and cherished plans and pioneer in a new, wild county where, to say the least, it would be a long hard fight against the elements and adverse conditions to make a living and establish homes. 

In obedience to "those in Authority" the call was accepted at the sacrifice of personal feelings or desires. Property was disposed of at much less than real value, teams made ready and wagons loaded with a few household goods, tools, farm implements, food, and seed grain and in November of 1881 the little caravan was on its way South. There were four wagons at the start of the trip Two outfits belonged to William, one to George E. Cook and the fourth to Dan Vincent. (It is possible Dan Vincent was a brother of William's first wife.) William also had a number of loose horse. William and his son, John, drove the two teams while sons Joseph and Ephraim drove the loose animals. The traveling party included: William Stradling, 57, his wife, Sophia, 42, married daughter, Mary Ann and her husband, George E. Cook and their two small children, the Stradling children - John, 17, Joseph, 15, Sarah, 13, Rose, 9, Ephraim, 7, Susan, 4, and Owen, 2. There Iwas also a man about the same age as Mary Ann whose name was Richard (Dick) Vincent. People called him "silly" and he was probably ********. He was mistreated by his relatives and William befriended him, giving him a home as long as he lived. It is possible Dick was a cousin of William's first wife. 

NEXT WEEK: THE TRIP TO ST. JOHN'S