SARAH FRANCELLE COLEMAN (HEYWOOD)
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Sarah Francelle Coleman, Called
Francelle or Lell.
Birth: 22 March 1860, Pinto, Washington, Utah Father: Prime Thornton Coleman Sr.
Mother: Emma Beck Evans
Marriage: 12 Jan 1876, Joseph Neal Heywood Sr.
Death: 9 Feb 1937, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California
Burial: 13 Feb 1937, Thatcher, Graham, Arizona.
Children:
Joseph Neal Jr. (1876-1968)
Spence Coleman (1878-1969)
Martha Emma (1883-1893)
Ella (1884-1972)
Ida Etta (1887-1889)
Leland (1892-1976)
Sarepta Francelle (1894-1895)
David Evans 1896-1974)
Sarah Velma (1898-1981)
Robert Tassie (1900-1971)
Irving Yeates (Yates) (1902-1995)
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Sarah Francelle Coleman Heywood, 1860
Pioneer Women of Arizona
Edited by Roberta Flake Clayton
Childhood
Sarah Francelle Coleman Heywood was born in Pinto, Washington County, Utah on March 22, 1860. Her parents were Prime Thornton Coleman and Emma B. Evans Coleman. She was their first child. Later they had another daughter and two sons.
In the early seventies, Francelle’s
father was called by the church authorities to take the Pinto herd of cattle to
a ranch near the Nevada line.[1] Three days travel over desert among foothills
and through groves of pine and cedar, in a heavy wagon loaded with necessary
household goods and dairy equipment, brought the family to a clear stream of
mountain water.
There was work for all to do. Francelle helped milk cows, and worked in the
house washing dishes, helping with the making of cheese and rolling salt. In her diary, Francelle wrote, “It seems now
as I look back that I spent years rolling salt with a rolling pin. In some way the sacks had become wet. The salt had hardened into lumps which had to
be made fine for the butter and cheese.”
There was still time for fun, such
as horse-back riding, picnicking and reading.
Even though Francelle's family had little opportunity for formal
education, there was a great desire to learn, and much good reading and
discussions about worthwhile things filled many long evening hours.
The nearest neighbor to the
Colemans was José C. Franselia, known as “Spanish George.” He owned a ranch, a band of horses, and all
the men that worked on his ranch. It was
ten miles distant and was known as “Spanish Hollow.”
A few miles beyond Spanish Hollow,
a Bennion family from Utah was camped for the summer, to graze sheep. Several Sundays that summer Francelle and her
family traveled in covered wagon, with their picnic, to visit at Spanish Hollow
or with the Bennions.
As summer advanced, the spring
rains that fed the creek on which Francelle’s family were located, began to dry
up. The cattle wandered up and down the
creek bed to find the holes of water.
Soon there was no water, even for household use. Something had to be done. Spanish George happened along and saw the
situation. He knew Prime T. Coleman was
an indefatigable worker, dependable and honest and would be an asset to his
ranch. So a partnership was formed
between the two men, and the Coleman family was on the move again.
At the end of two days the family
had driven into Spring Valley just as the sun had dropped behind the
mountain. Its rays glimmered on the
white and pink cliffs at the mountain’s base and were reflected in the hundreds
of sparkling springs that nestled in the green meadows and mirrored the cliffs
and great pines towering above. It was a
picture that brought peace and contentment to the weary Coleman family.
Here, Francelle’s family camped
near the home of William B. Maxwell, a hot-blooded Southern aristocrat and a
member of the Mormon Battalion.[2] After a short time there, the Coleman family
soon traveled the fifteen mile stretch to Camp Valley, their destination.
They moved into a three roomed,
dirt roofed, squatty house. But the
mother soon created a “homey” spirit that permeated the entire ranch. The father with his kit of tools put a shelf
here, a cupboard there, straightened sagging doors, cleaned the yards and gave
an air of thrift to the ranch.
When fall came, Francelle was sent
to Pinto to attend a three month’s school.
She boarded with Margaret Haskell.
The New School Master--"Mr. Heywood"
After the holidays, Francelle’s
father came to take her home. They
stopped in Spring Valley on the way to visit the Maxwells. The Maxwell girls were very excited and
talked like magpies, telling of the new young man teacher that was coming there
soon to be their “Master.” In the midst
of their jabber, her father called, “Fr–a–n–celle!” He always prolonged the already long name.
“Fr–a–n–celle, I’m waiting for
you.”
After reaching home, Francelle’s
mother arranged for her and her sister Etta to attend the school in Spring
Valley when it opened there. They were
to board with “Ma” Maxwell.
The few weeks spent at the ranch
before school began were with the help of two boys, Francelle, her sister,
their mother and a hired girl, cooking was done for twenty-five to thirty
men. The diet was beef three times a
day, soup, vegetables, black coffee, hot biscuits, cheese, butter and chilies.
When word came that school would
soon start, Francelle and Etta were taken by their father to Spring
Valley. Mr. Joseph Neal Heywood was the
young “School Master.” The three months
summer school began in May 1874. The
three mile walk to and from school along the foothills, across the soft meadow
grass, was always a pleasant memory to Francelle. She really and truly felt sorry when school
closed and she would be returning to the ranch and “Master” would be leaving.
Back at the ranch, their mother
warned the girls against being free with the class of men at the ranch. Elijah Pomeroy, whom Francelle’s sister Etta
later married, was the only man with whom they were allowed to go riding.[3]
Arrangements were made at the ranch
by Spanish George to celebrate September 21st as Mexican
Independence Day. Many guests from near
and far were invited. One among the many
guests that began to arrive on September 20th, in wagons, carriages
or on horseback, was a young man, Enoch Bennion.[4] He and Francelle fell in love with each
other, but before any plans for their future life together could be made, his
sudden death put an end to the romance.
In the fall of 1873, the Coleman
family moved to Spring Valley, near the school house.
One Sunday evening after having had
supper and a visit with the Maxwell girls, Mr. Heywood (no long just called
“Master”) insisted upon escorting Lell home. (Francelle was then called Lell). As they walked rather quietly toward her
home, he slowly and deliberately made the following statement. “I don’t want you to answer now, but when you
are old enough, I want you to marry me.”
Francelle asked, “When do you think
I will be old enough to answer?”
“Oh, there is plenty of time. You can talk with your mother about it and
see what she thinks,” he replied.
Francelle said, “I can tell you now
that I like you.”
“All right then, someday you will
be my little wife,” he answered.
As Francelle entered the door,
after Mr. Heywood left, her mother discerned something had happened to
Francelle, that she was in love. Later
in a conversation overheard between her mother and father, after Mr. Heywood
had asked if he could marry Francelle, she learned that her father had told
him, “I think she is only a child and I want to make something of her.”
She said that after years of
experience with her own children, the first query was easily answered, but that
the second question in her mind always remained a mystery.
Marriage
Their ever moving tide of life
carried Lell safely through the perilous stream of childhood and launched her
safely on the emotional waters in the “Bay of Romance.”
In May 1873, Mr. Heywood went to
Nevada to teach. Sometime in the summer
of 1874, Lell became engaged to marry him.
The period between engagement and marriage should have been one of
romance, as to most girls it would have been.
But being only fourteen years old, Lell continued in her childish sport of
horseback riding and helping with the milking, cooking and washing dishes. Moreover, during that summer, Mr. Heywood had
gone back to his home in Washington, Utah.
Francelle and Mr. Heywood, the name
Francelle always used in speaking to him or of him throughout her life, were
married January 12, 1876 in Spring Valley.
Mr. Heywood went to Carson City, Nevada to procure the license for
marriage. After returning with it and
while showing it to Lell’s mother, it slipped out of his hand and almost went
up the fireplace. Francelle often
wondered just what her life might have been if the license had actually “gone
up in smoke.”
Material had been purchased for a
beautiful wedding dress. But just prior
to the marriage, a lady had passed away.
Since it was impossible to buy in time or at the time material for her
burial clothes, the material supposed to have been for Francelle’s wedding gown
had to be used for burial clothes. So
Francelle was married in a green alpaca dress.
Later, July 17, 1876, the couple were sealed for time and all eternity
in the Endowment House, in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Upper Kanab
Pioneer life in those days was very rugged. Francelle and Mr. Heywood and their family moved to Upper Kanab, Utah with her parents and their families. Joseph Neal Jr., the Heywood’s oldest child, had been born in Spring Valley. Spence Coleman Heywood, the second child, was born in Upper Kanab.Move to Arizona
Interesting, Terrifying, Grueling, Shattering, Arduous
Later the family moved to Arizona. Of the trip, her sister[5]
wrote, “My sister, Lell, and two
children drove one wagon to which were hitched a very fiery, high-strung span
of sarel[6]
(sic) mares, afterwards said to be one of the finest teams in Apache
County. Sitting beside her on that high
wagon seat of the covered wagon were her two little boys, Neal, just turned
four years old, and Spence, Two.”
Years later, speaking of the
journey, Lell said, “it was a most shattering experience". The driving to the Colorado was not so bad,
and being ferried across the river was interesting; but the driving over Lee’s
Back Bone was the most terrifying, grueling experience of my life. Actually, there was no well-marked road. It was a trail perilously narrow in places,
wider in others, but always steep hills or dangerous dugways or curves. Sometimes I wonder how I did it”
Alpine, Arizona, 1881
Births, Deaths, Hardship and Sacrifice
After their arduous journey, the
pioneers finally arrived at their destination, Alpine, Arizona, the fifteenth
of January, 1881.
Years later, Francelle told her
daughter-in-law,[7] “I don’t enjoy Christmas. Mattie died on Christmas Eve and was buried
on Christmas day. I simply can’t seem to
forget. . .”
Francelle had much heavy work to
do, work that only a man should do, but no other help could be provided, as
every family in that area had had more than enough hard work to do, and it was
necessary for the women to help in order to survive.
Besides helping with the men’s
work, Francelle had all the household duties to perform with the help of the
children who were old enough, such as cooking, sewing for every member of the
family, milking cows, making cheese and butter, and doing nursing when there
was any illness in her own family or in other families where her help was
needed.
She and Mr. Heywood worked together
training their children to maintain high ideals, to strive for the best
education possible and to teach them the doctrines of the Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints and to teach them the importance of earnestly
living God’s commandments, developing spiritual values in life, and
understanding the goodness of God and his love for all His children were of
utmost importance in the everyday life of the Heywood family.
While in Alpine Mr. Heywood was
called to fill a mission for his church in New Zealand. He was gone three years. Francelle taught school in St. Johns, in a
near town called Egypt, and in Luna Valley, New Mexico, to pay his expenses
while gone and to support the family.
St. Johns, Arizona, 1885
After Mr. Heywood returned from his
mission and after Sarepta passed away, the family moved to St. Johns, Arizona
but they kept the home in Alpine and the father and older boys still maintained
the 160 acre ranch at Alpine.
In St. Johns, Velma (1898) and
David (1896) were born.
Thatcher, Arizona, 1900; A Growing Family
After four years of living in St.
Johns the family moved to Thatcher, Arizona, where Francelle’s parents were
then living.
One reason and a very important
one, that the family moved to St. Johns and then later to Thatcher, was because
of the heart condition from which Francelle was suffering. She needed to be in a lower altitude. Even then, the doctor gave her only ten years
to live at best. However, in the lower
altitude of Thatcher, her heart improved.
Arriving in Thatcher, the family
moved into a large tent, later moving into a small three bedroom house. Lell, happy to be living again near her
parents, set to work with their help to make it comfortable and homelike.
Of this period of time, their son,
Joseph Neal Heywood Jr. who had recently returned from a mission, wrote, “There was no question of their need
of me. It was pitiful to see their
condition. Mother, of course, was never
very well. Father, not strong at any
time, had been sick; and there were four small children: Leland, ten, David, 5, Velma, 3, Robert, 1,
and Yates on the way.
Robert and Yates were born in
Thatcher in 1900 and 1902.
Desire for Education
All the Heywood, Coleman people had
a rather intense desire for knowledge and for education. Lell’s son, Neal, said, “Small as I was, I
was seat-mate to my mother and subsequently my grandmother in the rough lumber
seats in one-teacher schools. Mother
taught the first school in Alpine, Arizona.
The patrons sending their children would donate commodities such as
flour, sugar, or such as they possessed.
In those one-teacher schools all students were in reading classes, not
grades. The age range was from six-year
old to adulthood.”
Tragedy Strikes
Mr. Heywood was accidently killed on
May 17, 1904 when thrown from a buck-rake while working in the field. His neck was instantly broken. He was 52. Lell was 46.
A great tragedy for Francelle and her family!
Only a short time before this
happened, Mr. Heywood had purchased a twenty acre farm with a small down
payment and what seemed a very heavy mortgage at that time.
So it was imperative for Francelle
to find some kind of remunerative work to do in order to support her family and
be able to keep the farm. She felt it
was necessary to keep the farm, because it would give work for her growing
boys, with the many jobs required on a farm and to would keep them out
of mischief. It was a very smart thing
to do, as it kept her family working together building very close family
ties. The boys have all become
successful, honorable, educated men and have reared fine families of their own,
due to their mother’s insight.
Of course, the two girls, Ella and
Velma, had their share of the chores and joys of family life through the
training and way of life provided by their mother’s untiring efforts.
Dogged Determination to Become a Teacher
 |
| Teacher in Thatcher |
She took the examinations three
times before successfully passing them.
Her dogged determination just would not allow her to give up.
During that time she also suffered
months of severe illness, a combination of typhoid fever, bronchitis and
whooping cough. Her mother nursed
her. Kind neighbors asked her who she
would like to have take her children when she died. She answered, “I am not going to die. I can rear my children better than anyone
else can, and I will live to do it.” And
she did.
Francelle’s own schooling, because
of her pioneer life, had been very limited, but she was determined to learn all
she could and she became an excellent and much loved teacher. She always usually had to teach in a
town other than Thatcher, in some other town than Thatcher, the town in
which she lived, driving there by horse and buggy. The School Board in Thatcher, called
“Trustees,” wanted to import their teachers, college graduates, from the East.
Arizona and California
Mesa, Blue Point
After all her children, for one
reason or another, had flown the home nest, the twenty-acre farm was sold and
Francelle purchased a home in Mesa, Arizona, where her sister lived. She taught school for a brief period at Blue
Point, a few miles from Mesa. Then she
retired from teaching, which she had done for more than twenty-five years,
besides rearing her family.
Los Angeles
When Leland decided he would like to become a dentist, he came to Los Angeles, California to attend the University of Southern California. His lovely wife, Margaret, qualified as a teacher in the Los Angeles City Schools and taught in order to help him. They had a little daughter, Josephine, so Francelle came to Los Angeles and lived with them to help and to care for the little girl while they were both in school.
After Leland graduated from Dental
College in June 1928, he and his family moved to Arizona.
Because Francelle’s health was
better in the low altitude in California, she made her home with Velma the
remainder of her life. Her heart finally
gave up. She passed away in Los Angeles
February 9, 1937. She was almost 77
years old when she passed away.
She was taken to Thatcher, Arizona
for the funeral and was buried beside her husband. Five of her sons served as pallbearers.
Francelle was never idle even after
she had reared a family, helped with the grandchildren and had retired from
many years of teaching. When not doing
necessary household chores, she was always busy knitting, crocheting, netting, sewing,
reading or writing sketches of her life and interesting experiences, in both
prose and poetry. She always kept her
high ideals, gave encouragement to others, and was a friend to everyone,
especially to those who seemed to be in need.
[1]
Pinto is in northern Washington County, very near the Iron/Washington County
line, and Spring Valley, their end destination, is in Lincoln County,
Nevada. So, Prime Coleman traveled
northwest with the Pinto herd. Mormons
settled in this area of Nevada as early as 1864, particularly at Pioche and
Panaca. Spring Valley is at the upper
end of the Meadow Valley Wash which eventually empties into the Muddy River
near Moapa. Today, Spring Valley is part
of the Nevada state park system.
[2]
William B. Maxwell, Company D of the Mormon Battalion, lived in southern Apache
County (Alpine) but died at Mesa in 1895.
[3]
Mary Annetta Coleman (1862-1946) married Elijah Pomeroy (1850-1916) in 1879; in
1884, Elijah married a second wife, Lucretia Phelps (1967-1966, see Sarah Lucretia Phelps Pomeroy, this
volume). In the 1910 census, Elijah and
Etta Pomeroy are listed with their children (Mesa, Maricopa, Arizona); Lucretia
is living separately (in Alma, Maricopa County) with her three children.
[4]
Enoch Bennion was the son of John and Esther Bennion; he died November 28,
1873.
[5]
Mary Annetta “Etta” Coleman Pomeroy
[6]
Chestnut or Sorrel Horse— usually
used to refer to a copper-red shade of chestnut.
[7]
Margaret Eleanor Smurthwaite Heywood
[8]
1 Nephi 8:20.
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