William Freeman FARR [Parents] [scrapbook] ¹ was born ² on 16 Jan 1861 in Ogden, Weber, Utah, United States. He died ³ on 26 Dec 1941 in Gridley, Butte, California, United States. He was buried ⁴ on 29 Dec 1941 in Gridley, Butte, California, United States. William married Emily Frances CHAMPNEYS ⁵ on 27 Apr 1882 in Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah, United States.

Other marriages:

HANSEN, Anna

William Freeman Farr was born to Aaron Farr and Lucretia Balthorp Jan. 16, 1861, in Ogden, Weber, Utah. His parents accepted the Mormon religion and came across the country as pioneers. His father worked hard and did very well financially. William met Emily Frances Champneys and married her April 27, 1882. His father built them a brick home in Ogden. They had two children there. Will decided to homestead some property in Lewisville, Idaho. They had two more children in Lewisville. But unfortunately Emily died due to complications with the birth of her fourth child. Three months later Will married Anna Hansen on April 27, 1889, the same day of his and Emily's wedding anniversary. Anna was from Denmark originally. Together they had six children born to them in Lewisville. In 1910 the family is found on the census in Gridley, Butte Co., California. Will must have sold his farm in Idaho and bought a farm in California. Five kids were living with them then. In 1920 he was still living in Gridley but at age 59 Will is listed as a teamster. Will and Anna remained in Gridley until their deaths.

William (Will) Freeman Farr by Marcy Bramwell

William (Will) Freeman Farr was born in Ogden, Weber, Utah on 16 January 1861, the second son born to Aaron Freeman Farr and Lucretia Ball Thorp. Lucretia being Aaron's second wife.

Will's brother Charles Lyman, died in infancy. His older sister was Olive Estella (Stella), he also had two younger sisters, Lucretia Rosabell (Rose) and Cordelia Ballou. Sadly, search for pictures or information of Will's early years have been fruitless.

Since his beautiful mother, Lucretia, had a good education for those early times and taught school for a while, it can be assumed that attention would have been paid to Will's secular and religious education.
Free spirited? To keep ahead of the dust? Impatient to get there? From St. Louis to Utah, for whatever reason, Lucretia had walked nearly every step of the way, a little ahead of the wagon train, carrying a small stool to rest on as she waited for the company to catch up. (The small stool is a treasure of one of her granddaughters, Gloria Hall Johnson.) Lucretia continued a faithful member of the LDS Church throughout her life. She served as president of the Ogden Third Ward Relief Society for 24 years, taking charge of many large banquets and all the duties that position required.

Will's known story begins with his marriage at age twenty-one to the beautiful and talented Emily Frances Champneys. She had immigrated from a financially comfortable environment in London, England, and was five years younger than Will. Emily was well education, had a lovely-trained contralto voice and was accomplished on the piano. When her father and younger sister moved from Salt Lake City to Ogden, she was permitted to remain in Salt Lake City another year to finish her musical training. Will and Emily were sealed in the Endowment House in Salt Lake City on 27 April 1882.

Will's father Aaron, having been in the first westward company of pioneers, had by now become a judge and prominent resident of Ogden and a person of some means. He built a red brick house for Will and Emily on the family lot at the corner of Washington Avenue and Twentieth Street. Two children were born in this Ogden home: Maud Lucretia and William Vernon (Bern).

We don't know how they met, but Emily fell in love with Will when she was only 16 years old and was sealed to him in the Endowment House in Salt Lake City on 27 April 1882. Because Will's father wanted the reception to be in his home, the Champneys provided a sumptuous banquet there for the ninety guest and had their piano taken over for the event. They knew the guests would ask the bride to sing. Minnie said Emily selected a pretty love song called "I heard a Wee Bird Singing." In the last refrain, the words were, "I heard a wee bird singing, and the wedding bells were ringing, and then Willie was my own." When the applause stopped, some of the guest hurried over to seee the music to see for what name she had substituted "Willie" and found it was "Tillie." She then played a number of piano solos. (One of Maud's earliest recollections is that of accompanying her beautiful mother to the Mack Boyce home where there was a piano. She remembered her mother playing and singing, "I'll Take You Home Again, Kathlee.")

Will was apparently an ambitious young man open to challenges. When the government offered land to homestead in 1885, he filed on a 160-acre section one mile south of the southeast corner of Lewisville, Idaho. We know he later helped a son-in-law get logs from the timberland near Yellowstone Park, so it is likely that such was the source for the logs for the new cabin to which he and Emily took Maud and Vern a couple of years later. It was here where their second daughter Norma Elizabeth was born.

Perhaps to the surprise of some, Emily adjusted beautifully to this new frontier life. However tragedy struck the little family when Emily died 21 January 1889 following complications of the birth of her second son Cyril, on 16 January 1889. Will's sister Olive Estella and others cared for the infant until his death the following August. His healthy and robust appearance in a professional photograph leads one to speculate that Cyril succumbed to a childhood communicable disease.

Will later married Anna Hansen who was born in Horsen, Odense, Denmark, January 19, 1869. Her large family had been converted to the Church and immigrated to the United States in groups as passage could be earned. They traveled at the cheapest rate, in crude, cramped steerage class, as did many during the 1800's and early 1900's, and in their case, in proximity to animals. Her mother chose to come last, believing the family would work harder at earning her passage than if a child was left behind.

When she was 14, Anna came to America, with her father, Mads Christian Hansen, two brothers and a sister on the ship "Nevada" leaving from Liverpool, England on 21 Jun 1882. From New York they continued by rail to Ogden, then on to Goshen, Utah.
Her marriage to Wiliam Cateron had ended in divorce and she and her son, William Henry (Will), were living with her parents in Goshen, Utah, when her brother, Joseph, related to her the sad circumstances of his friend, Will Farr.

Leaving her small son, Will, to the care of her parents, Maren and Mads Christian Hansen, beautiful twenty-year old Anna succumbed to Joseph's persuasion to move to Lewisville, Idaho, to take care of Will's young family. When several weeks later she learned that wagging tongues were making false accusations, her fiery temper flared. She packed her things and was headed for the buggy with the children crying and Maud hanging on to Anna's leg, begging her not to go. She couldn't leave them. So Will and Anna decided to get married.

Their civil marriage was on 27 April 1889 in Eagle Rock Idaho (near Idaho Falls). A grandson asked Will if he loved Anna when they married. He answered "not then, but I do now." They and their children were sealed in the Salt Lake Temple on 8 October 1903, including Anna's son, William Henry (Will) Cateron Farr, who was adopted by Will Farr.

In addition to mothering Will's three and her son from a previous marriage, six more children were born to them in the Lewisville vicinity, three girls and three boys: Carrie Lucinthia b. 5 Jun 1890, Lillian Frances b. 28 June 1892, Lila b. 2 May 1894 d. 1902, Clarence Henry b. 17 May 1896, LeRoy b. 9 Sep 1899 (also died in 1902, both deaths from diphtheria) and Aaron Lovon (Lavon) b. 14 Dec 1903.

Frontier life was strenuous and everyone pitched in to the extent of his or her capacity. For their dry farm cabin days, their water came from a nearby canal in the summer and from melted snow in the winter. They produced nearly everything they consumed. Their cold storage in summer was creatd by huge ice blocks cut from the river in winter, insulated by straw and placed in a deep cellar dug next to the cabin. The children did laundry, herded or milked cows, hoed beets, picked up potatoes at harvest time and cooked for threshing crews. Rendering lard, bottling and drying fruit and vegetables, making bread and cheese and butter, sewing carpet rags, knitting and sewing clothing kept many hands busy.

Subsequently, Will, Anna and family moved into a brick home in Lewisville (still standing, at least in the sixities, a store having been built immediately in front of it). Their social life centerd around the Church and the children remembered many happy times. Except for the long, extremely cold winters, they were content.
IN 1905, the California Irrigated Lands Company, headquartered in San Francisco, began a nation-wide advertising campaign to sell plats of land in their "colonies" around Gridley Butte, California. Water had been turned out of the Feather River into the Butte County canal northest of the town and gradually turned the old "dry-farmed" lands into irrigated farms where alfalfa, fruit trees and row crops were the mainstay of an every-increasing number of small landholders.

The company's advertising was enthusiastic and promising. Old times tell of large posters in Wisconsin post office showing a happy farmer plowing silver dollars out of the furrows at "Gridley, California." The local newspaper published generous editorials on the productiveness of Gridley's water-fed soil, the maps of the growing colonies, and the pictures of peaceful lateral ditches conveying water to pleasant fields and orchards.
These irrigated lands drew hundreds from their former homes in Utah and Idaho. Devoted to their faith and to each other, and charateristically industrious, the Latter Day Saint community grew rapidly from 1906 on.

It is not suprising that, when friends who scouted the area returned to Lewisville corroborating the glowing accounts. Will sold out and bought a home in Gridley. He chartered a freight car and with his brother-in-law Joseph, accompanied the animals, furniture and farm equipment to Gridley while the family traveled by coach.

They arrived January 16, 1907. Some of the children recorded their impressions as stepping into Paradise, others the Garden of Eden. Their sudden transplant from ice and snow to green grass, birds singing, oranges, lemons and olives on the trees at the train station was astonishing. It was love at first sight.
There were a few second thoughts, however, when the following March there was a vividly remembered flood when the cresting Sacramento and Feather Rivers met and overflowed. People gathered up on boats and taken to the hotel in town, which was on higher ground. Farm animals and flocks were also rescued by boat. Will and Maud's husband Alfred Bramwell, carried pigs into the barn loft to keep them from drowning. Horses and cows stood in barns in water up to their bellies. The flood finally subsided after three anxious days. Dikes and drainage ditches were gradually provided to eliminate the threat.

Subsequently some of the "colonizers" left because of malaria conditions until drainage ditches were put inplace to ease the severe mosquito problem, then they returned.

At the outset, some of the local residents did not take kindly to the influx of the "Mormons" whose ways and faith were different from their own. Will was challenged by a group of townspeople who met the train (wanting to see his horns) but he held his ground and the town Marshall warned the troublemakers to desist. In time however, with the dispelling of false tales, the industry, circumspect behaviour and farming know-how of the arrivals commanded respect from the settlers and misconceptions gave way.

Will's granson Jack Nielson recalled a very ambitious 24th of July parade several years later with a band, covered wagons, horses, floates, marching children and "Indians" riding bareback, all organized by Will. Jack contrasted the warmth of hundreds of townspeople lining the streets enjoying this L.D. S. production with the original hostility and disdain with which they had been met.

Will was relatively comfortable financially when he moved to California. At some point, he contracted to install a sewer system. Everything proceeded well until quicksand was encountered. He lost everything and had to start over. Nevertheless, he was always open-handed, housing various families until they could get settled, taking people in and giving them a hand up.

Later on, until numbers made it unwieldy his children with their familes met together to celebrate Thanksgiving and other holidays. IN addition, there was an annual camping vacation at beautiful Buck's Lake in the Sierra Nevada mountains about 50 miles from Gridley. As many of the extended family as could spent one or two weeks or over a weekend. Such memorable fun-filled days and evenings: rowing, fishing, exploring, campfire weenie and marshmallow roasts, flap jacks (fried bread dough), and sharing stories. Even the granchildren's boy friends and girlfriends were welcome. It was here that Will's gregarious nature and genuine love of all people was most noticeable. By the end of the first day, he had become acquainted with every camper and knew every Forest Ranger and Lodge Owner.

He and his sons and grandsons shared a strong attraction to hunting and fishing and loved the camaraderie of their ventures. Nothing interfered with hunting season. Many pictures abound which attest to their success.

Will had built a home on three (or four) acres of good soil and truck gardened for many years, supplying the local markets with premium quality vegetable and melons. The melons were irresistible to young vandals who one day were "caught in the act." Will's grandson Jack, still recalled in his senior years how impressed he was with the way the teaching moment was handled. Will brought the fellows over and sat them down under a fruit tree, cut generous slices of watermelon for all to eat, and assured them that whenever they wanted watermelon to just come to the door and they'd have it. Which was done. To Jack's knowledge, there was never another problem.

Anna (or Annie as she was affectionately called) was fiercely protective of her children and tireless worker in the Church. One of the earlies Sunday Schools was held in Anna and Will's home with daughter Lillan playing the piano. Anna was Relief Socity president for over twenty-five years, supervising the very ambitious annual bazaars (for which beautiful quilts and other handcrafts were labored over all year), as well as the many banquets and compassionate acts of service the position entails.

It was no secret to the family, however, that at times the atmosphere in Will's and Anna's home could not be characterized as serene. Anna was a truly beautiful woman but with a fiery temper and objects could be seen flying in the direction of Will. One can speculate that he just might have baited her for the show. But any reaction on his part (other than ducking) was verbal, never physical.

Anna died of cancer at the age of 63 on 22 March 1932 and was buried in the Gridley-Biggs cemetery, the resting-place for numerous Farr descendants since that time. Though many have died elsewhere when their time came, they have been taken "home" to Gridley for burial.
The youngest son and wife, Lavon and Gladys, generously moved into the home to care for Will for the next nine years. He died of a paralytic stroke at the age of 80 on 26 December 1941.

Jack Nielson, who lived across the street and spent more time at his grandparents home than his own, probably knew Will and Anna better than any one else. Anna was his haven of security to which he ran, especially to escape a spanking from his mother. Looking beyond human weaknesses to which he was not blind, Will was to Jack, one of the greatest men he ever knew, living and teaching scrupulous honesty and genuine love for all people.

Emily Frances CHAMPNEYS [scrapbook] ¹ was born on 30 Jun 1866 in London, Middlesex, England, United Kingdom. She died on 21 Jan 1889 in Lewisville, Jefferson, Idaho, United States. She was buried in Ogden, Weber, Utah, United States. Emily married William Freeman FARR ² on 27 Apr 1882 in Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah, United States.

William Freeman FARR [Parents] [scrapbook] ¹ was born ² on 16 Jan 1861 in Ogden, Weber, Utah, United States. He died ³ on 26 Dec 1941 in Gridley, Butte, California, United States. He was buried ⁴ on 29 Dec 1941 in Gridley, Butte, California, United States. William married Anna HANSEN on 27 Apr 1889 in Eagle Rock, Bonneville, Idaho, United States.

Other marriages:

CHAMPNEYS, Emily Frances

William Freeman Farr was born to Aaron Farr and Lucretia Balthorp Jan. 16, 1861, in Ogden, Weber, Utah. His parents accepted the Mormon religion and came across the country as pioneers. His father worked hard and did very well financially. William met Emily Frances Champneys and married her April 27, 1882. His father built them a brick home in Ogden. They had two children there. Will decided to homestead some property in Lewisville, Idaho. They had two more children in Lewisville. But unfortunately Emily died due to complications with the birth of her fourth child. Three months later Will married Anna Hansen on April 27, 1889, the same day of his and Emily's wedding anniversary. Anna was from Denmark originally. Together they had six children born to them in Lewisville. In 1910 the family is found on the census in Gridley, Butte Co., California. Will must have sold his farm in Idaho and bought a farm in California. Five kids were living with them then. In 1920 he was still living in Gridley but at age 59 Will is listed as a teamster. Will and Anna remained in Gridley until their deaths.

William (Will) Freeman Farr by Marcy Bramwell

William (Will) Freeman Farr was born in Ogden, Weber, Utah on 16 January 1861, the second son born to Aaron Freeman Farr and Lucretia Ball Thorp. Lucretia being Aaron's second wife.

Will's brother Charles Lyman, died in infancy. His older sister was Olive Estella (Stella), he also had two younger sisters, Lucretia Rosabell (Rose) and Cordelia Ballou. Sadly, search for pictures or information of Will's early years have been fruitless.

Since his beautiful mother, Lucretia, had a good education for those early times and taught school for a while, it can be assumed that attention would have been paid to Will's secular and religious education.
Free spirited? To keep ahead of the dust? Impatient to get there? From St. Louis to Utah, for whatever reason, Lucretia had walked nearly every step of the way, a little ahead of the wagon train, carrying a small stool to rest on as she waited for the company to catch up. (The small stool is a treasure of one of her granddaughters, Gloria Hall Johnson.) Lucretia continued a faithful member of the LDS Church throughout her life. She served as president of the Ogden Third Ward Relief Society for 24 years, taking charge of many large banquets and all the duties that position required.

Will's known story begins with his marriage at age twenty-one to the beautiful and talented Emily Frances Champneys. She had immigrated from a financially comfortable environment in London, England, and was five years younger than Will. Emily was well education, had a lovely-trained contralto voice and was accomplished on the piano. When her father and younger sister moved from Salt Lake City to Ogden, she was permitted to remain in Salt Lake City another year to finish her musical training. Will and Emily were sealed in the Endowment House in Salt Lake City on 27 April 1882.

Will's father Aaron, having been in the first westward company of pioneers, had by now become a judge and prominent resident of Ogden and a person of some means. He built a red brick house for Will and Emily on the family lot at the corner of Washington Avenue and Twentieth Street. Two children were born in this Ogden home: Maud Lucretia and William Vernon (Bern).

We don't know how they met, but Emily fell in love with Will when she was only 16 years old and was sealed to him in the Endowment House in Salt Lake City on 27 April 1882. Because Will's father wanted the reception to be in his home, the Champneys provided a sumptuous banquet there for the ninety guest and had their piano taken over for the event. They knew the guests would ask the bride to sing. Minnie said Emily selected a pretty love song called "I heard a Wee Bird Singing." In the last refrain, the words were, "I heard a wee bird singing, and the wedding bells were ringing, and then Willie was my own." When the applause stopped, some of the guest hurried over to seee the music to see for what name she had substituted "Willie" and found it was "Tillie." She then played a number of piano solos. (One of Maud's earliest recollections is that of accompanying her beautiful mother to the Mack Boyce home where there was a piano. She remembered her mother playing and singing, "I'll Take You Home Again, Kathlee.")

Will was apparently an ambitious young man open to challenges. When the government offered land to homestead in 1885, he filed on a 160-acre section one mile south of the southeast corner of Lewisville, Idaho. We know he later helped a son-in-law get logs from the timberland near Yellowstone Park, so it is likely that such was the source for the logs for the new cabin to which he and Emily took Maud and Vern a couple of years later. It was here where their second daughter Norma Elizabeth was born.

Perhaps to the surprise of some, Emily adjusted beautifully to this new frontier life. However tragedy struck the little family when Emily died 21 January 1889 following complications of the birth of her second son Cyril, on 16 January 1889. Will's sister Olive Estella and others cared for the infant until his death the following August. His healthy and robust appearance in a professional photograph leads one to speculate that Cyril succumbed to a childhood communicable disease.

Will later married Anna Hansen who was born in Horsen, Odense, Denmark, January 19, 1869. Her large family had been converted to the Church and immigrated to the United States in groups as passage could be earned. They traveled at the cheapest rate, in crude, cramped steerage class, as did many during the 1800's and early 1900's, and in their case, in proximity to animals. Her mother chose to come last, believing the family would work harder at earning her passage than if a child was left behind.

When she was 14, Anna came to America, with her father, Mads Christian Hansen, two brothers and a sister on the ship "Nevada" leaving from Liverpool, England on 21 Jun 1882. From New York they continued by rail to Ogden, then on to Goshen, Utah.
Her marriage to Wiliam Cateron had ended in divorce and she and her son, William Henry (Will), were living with her parents in Goshen, Utah, when her brother, Joseph, related to her the sad circumstances of his friend, Will Farr.

Leaving her small son, Will, to the care of her parents, Maren and Mads Christian Hansen, beautiful twenty-year old Anna succumbed to Joseph's persuasion to move to Lewisville, Idaho, to take care of Will's young family. When several weeks later she learned that wagging tongues were making false accusations, her fiery temper flared. She packed her things and was headed for the buggy with the children crying and Maud hanging on to Anna's leg, begging her not to go. She couldn't leave them. So Will and Anna decided to get married.

Their civil marriage was on 27 April 1889 in Eagle Rock Idaho (near Idaho Falls). A grandson asked Will if he loved Anna when they married. He answered "not then, but I do now." They and their children were sealed in the Salt Lake Temple on 8 October 1903, including Anna's son, William Henry (Will) Cateron Farr, who was adopted by Will Farr.

In addition to mothering Will's three and her son from a previous marriage, six more children were born to them in the Lewisville vicinity, three girls and three boys: Carrie Lucinthia b. 5 Jun 1890, Lillian Frances b. 28 June 1892, Lila b. 2 May 1894 d. 1902, Clarence Henry b. 17 May 1896, LeRoy b. 9 Sep 1899 (also died in 1902, both deaths from diphtheria) and Aaron Lovon (Lavon) b. 14 Dec 1903.

Frontier life was strenuous and everyone pitched in to the extent of his or her capacity. For their dry farm cabin days, their water came from a nearby canal in the summer and from melted snow in the winter. They produced nearly everything they consumed. Their cold storage in summer was creatd by huge ice blocks cut from the river in winter, insulated by straw and placed in a deep cellar dug next to the cabin. The children did laundry, herded or milked cows, hoed beets, picked up potatoes at harvest time and cooked for threshing crews. Rendering lard, bottling and drying fruit and vegetables, making bread and cheese and butter, sewing carpet rags, knitting and sewing clothing kept many hands busy.

Subsequently, Will, Anna and family moved into a brick home in Lewisville (still standing, at least in the sixities, a store having been built immediately in front of it). Their social life centerd around the Church and the children remembered many happy times. Except for the long, extremely cold winters, they were content.
IN 1905, the California Irrigated Lands Company, headquartered in San Francisco, began a nation-wide advertising campaign to sell plats of land in their "colonies" around Gridley Butte, California. Water had been turned out of the Feather River into the Butte County canal northest of the town and gradually turned the old "dry-farmed" lands into irrigated farms where alfalfa, fruit trees and row crops were the mainstay of an every-increasing number of small landholders.

The company's advertising was enthusiastic and promising. Old times tell of large posters in Wisconsin post office showing a happy farmer plowing silver dollars out of the furrows at "Gridley, California." The local newspaper published generous editorials on the productiveness of Gridley's water-fed soil, the maps of the growing colonies, and the pictures of peaceful lateral ditches conveying water to pleasant fields and orchards.
These irrigated lands drew hundreds from their former homes in Utah and Idaho. Devoted to their faith and to each other, and charateristically industrious, the Latter Day Saint community grew rapidly from 1906 on.

It is not suprising that, when friends who scouted the area returned to Lewisville corroborating the glowing accounts. Will sold out and bought a home in Gridley. He chartered a freight car and with his brother-in-law Joseph, accompanied the animals, furniture and farm equipment to Gridley while the family traveled by coach.

They arrived January 16, 1907. Some of the children recorded their impressions as stepping into Paradise, others the Garden of Eden. Their sudden transplant from ice and snow to green grass, birds singing, oranges, lemons and olives on the trees at the train station was astonishing. It was love at first sight.
There were a few second thoughts, however, when the following March there was a vividly remembered flood when the cresting Sacramento and Feather Rivers met and overflowed. People gathered up on boats and taken to the hotel in town, which was on higher ground. Farm animals and flocks were also rescued by boat. Will and Maud's husband Alfred Bramwell, carried pigs into the barn loft to keep them from drowning. Horses and cows stood in barns in water up to their bellies. The flood finally subsided after three anxious days. Dikes and drainage ditches were gradually provided to eliminate the threat.

Subsequently some of the "colonizers" left because of malaria conditions until drainage ditches were put inplace to ease the severe mosquito problem, then they returned.

At the outset, some of the local residents did not take kindly to the influx of the "Mormons" whose ways and faith were different from their own. Will was challenged by a group of townspeople who met the train (wanting to see his horns) but he held his ground and the town Marshall warned the troublemakers to desist. In time however, with the dispelling of false tales, the industry, circumspect behaviour and farming know-how of the arrivals commanded respect from the settlers and misconceptions gave way.

Will's granson Jack Nielson recalled a very ambitious 24th of July parade several years later with a band, covered wagons, horses, floates, marching children and "Indians" riding bareback, all organized by Will. Jack contrasted the warmth of hundreds of townspeople lining the streets enjoying this L.D. S. production with the original hostility and disdain with which they had been met.

Will was relatively comfortable financially when he moved to California. At some point, he contracted to install a sewer system. Everything proceeded well until quicksand was encountered. He lost everything and had to start over. Nevertheless, he was always open-handed, housing various families until they could get settled, taking people in and giving them a hand up.

Later on, until numbers made it unwieldy his children with their familes met together to celebrate Thanksgiving and other holidays. IN addition, there was an annual camping vacation at beautiful Buck's Lake in the Sierra Nevada mountains about 50 miles from Gridley. As many of the extended family as could spent one or two weeks or over a weekend. Such memorable fun-filled days and evenings: rowing, fishing, exploring, campfire weenie and marshmallow roasts, flap jacks (fried bread dough), and sharing stories. Even the granchildren's boy friends and girlfriends were welcome. It was here that Will's gregarious nature and genuine love of all people was most noticeable. By the end of the first day, he had become acquainted with every camper and knew every Forest Ranger and Lodge Owner.

He and his sons and grandsons shared a strong attraction to hunting and fishing and loved the camaraderie of their ventures. Nothing interfered with hunting season. Many pictures abound which attest to their success.

Will had built a home on three (or four) acres of good soil and truck gardened for many years, supplying the local markets with premium quality vegetable and melons. The melons were irresistible to young vandals who one day were "caught in the act." Will's grandson Jack, still recalled in his senior years how impressed he was with the way the teaching moment was handled. Will brought the fellows over and sat them down under a fruit tree, cut generous slices of watermelon for all to eat, and assured them that whenever they wanted watermelon to just come to the door and they'd have it. Which was done. To Jack's knowledge, there was never another problem.

Anna (or Annie as she was affectionately called) was fiercely protective of her children and tireless worker in the Church. One of the earlies Sunday Schools was held in Anna and Will's home with daughter Lillan playing the piano. Anna was Relief Socity president for over twenty-five years, supervising the very ambitious annual bazaars (for which beautiful quilts and other handcrafts were labored over all year), as well as the many banquets and compassionate acts of service the position entails.

It was no secret to the family, however, that at times the atmosphere in Will's and Anna's home could not be characterized as serene. Anna was a truly beautiful woman but with a fiery temper and objects could be seen flying in the direction of Will. One can speculate that he just might have baited her for the show. But any reaction on his part (other than ducking) was verbal, never physical.

Anna died of cancer at the age of 63 on 22 March 1932 and was buried in the Gridley-Biggs cemetery, the resting-place for numerous Farr descendants since that time. Though many have died elsewhere when their time came, they have been taken "home" to Gridley for burial.
The youngest son and wife, Lavon and Gladys, generously moved into the home to care for Will for the next nine years. He died of a paralytic stroke at the age of 80 on 26 December 1941.

Jack Nielson, who lived across the street and spent more time at his grandparents home than his own, probably knew Will and Anna better than any one else. Anna was his haven of security to which he ran, especially to escape a spanking from his mother. Looking beyond human weaknesses to which he was not blind, Will was to Jack, one of the greatest men he ever knew, living and teaching scrupulous honesty and genuine love for all people.

Anna HANSEN [scrapbook] was born on 19 Jan 1869 in Horsens, Odense, Denmark. She died on 22 Mar 1932 in Gridley, Butte, California, United States. She was buried in Gridley, Butte, California, United States. Anna married William Freeman FARR ¹ on 27 Apr 1889 in Eagle Rock, Bonneville, Idaho, United States.

Alfred Augustus BRAMWELL Jr. [scrapbook] was born ¹ on 7 Aug 1879 in Plain City, Weber, Utah, United States. He died ² on 18 Apr 1950 in Gridley, Butte, California, United States. He was buried on 21 Apr 1950 in Gridley, Butte, California, United States. Alfred married Maud Lucretia FARR on 9 Oct 1902 in Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah, United States.

Maud Lucretia FARR [Parents] [scrapbook] was born ¹ on 1 Jan 1883 in Ogden, Weber, Utah, United States. She died ² on 27 Oct 1967 in Gridley, Butte, California, United States. She was buried on 30 Oct 1967 in Gridley, Butte, California, United States. Maud married Alfred Augustus BRAMWELL Jr. on 9 Oct 1902 in Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah, United States.

Maud resided ³ in 1900 in Lewisville, Jefferson, Idaho, United States.

Maud Lucretia Farr was born January 1, 1883 in Ogden, Weber, Utah, to William Freeman Farr and Emily Frances Champneys. Her mother joined the Mormon Church in England and emmigrated to Utah. Maud was the oldest of four children. When she was a small child, her parents moved the family to Lewisville, Jefferson Co., Idaho, where they homesteaded some land. Emily, her mother, died when Maud was six years old after complications with the birth of her baby brother, Cyril. Three months after her mother died, her father married Anna Hansen.

At the age of 19, Maud married Alfred Augustus Bramwell, Jr. October 9, 1902. They were sealed for eternity in the Salt Lake City Temple. In 1910 the census shows that Maud and Alfred had moved to Gridley, Butte, California to farm, about 50 miles north of Sacramento. Maud's parents had moved there also. In the 1920 census Alfred and Maud had moved to Idaho Falls where he owned and operated a machinist shop. In 1930 they were again back at Gridley, Butte, California. Alfred was a carpenter building houses.

Maud and Alfred had six girls and one son. They did much to settle the Gridley area and lived there the rest of their lives. Alfred passed when Maud was 67. She went on to live without him for 17 years before she died at the age of 84

William Vernon FARR [Parents] [scrapbook] was born ^{1, 2} on 22 Dec 1884 in Ogden, Weber, Utah, United States. He died ³ on 22 Oct 1968 in Gridley, Butte, California, United States. William married ⁴ Leone JOHNSON "Minnie" on 25 Nov 1915 in Lewisville, Jefferson, Idaho, United States.

William resided ⁵ in 1900 in Lewisville, Jefferson, Idaho, United States.

Vern the second child of William (Will) Freeman Farr and Emily Frances Champneys was born 22 December 1884 in Ogden, Weber, Utah. His mother Emily died when Vern was about four years of age as a result of complicatons from giving birth to his brother Cyril on 21 January 1889 in Lewisville, Idaho.

His father married Anna Hansen, a pretty immigrant from Denmark who had come to care for the family after Emily's death. To that union six children were born.

Being the oldest in the merged families, Maud and Vern took on arduous tasks normally beyond their years. When Vern was ten, he built stools so that each of them could reach the crank device to push it back and forth manually washing the clothes for the entire family.

It is not clear how Vern met his wife Leona (Leone) Minnie Johnson. They were married on Thanksgiving Day in 1914. Vern's daughter, Norma, believes it was in Avon, Utah. That was where Leone was born in 1888. Norma remembered her mother telling her that she cooked the Thanksgiving dinner that day for all relatives and friends that came to the wedding, Norma didn't know why. So she assumes that if she cooked for wedding guests, it would have been in a familiar setting.

Alva Jay was born 18 August 1916 to Vern and Leone. When Jay was a tiny baby, Vern had a terrible accident that almost took his life. Norma said that he was driving a team of horses pulling a wagon when some kind of derrick or boom on the wagon touched an electric wire poser line which fell down on Vern. It burned him horribly and knocked him uncounscious. The power went down through the reins which he was holding in his hands and killed both horses. Vern was badly scarred, in the hospital for weeks and weeks and unable to work for about a year.

Norma said she didn't know how the family lived unless the Church members came to their rescue as they seem to do all the time when people are in need. Jack Nielson, relating the same incident, said that his mother, Lillian, for about a year had nursed Vern back to health.

Norma was born 3 June 1922 in Lewisville, Fremont, Idaho, when it was a tiny town on the Snake River just north of Idaho Falls. Vern and Leone had moved there just prior to her birth. Vern was a farmer but probably earned most of his income as a member of a sheep-shearing crew who traveled all over the state.

When Norma was about two, Vern and Leone decided to go to Gridley, Butte, California where Vern would go into business with his brothers in the Farr Brothers Sand and Gravel Company. Norma said they drove in what must have been an old Model T Truck. It took seventeen days to go 900 miles due to breakdowns and flat tires.

They had piled everthing they owned in the back of the truck and put mattresses on top of that, where Jay and Norma rode. the whole thing was covered with a tarp, so they likely resembled a covered wagon.

Vern and Leon bought a house in Gridley at 1755 Sycamore Street. This placed them roughly midway between the homes of Vern's beloved sisters, Norma and Maud, two or three blocks distant from each them. It was here where Dora was born on 10 September 1927.

The detail are not known, perhaps the sand and gravel business was not large enough to support all three brothers, so Vern's association in the company didn't work out. He continued on his own but found it challenging.

Norma recalls that her parents must have been very good disciplinarians. Vern never touched them. Leone seemed to be the one who took care of their problems. Norma remembered a time when she was about four that she decided to run away from home. She took her doll and packed a couple of things, went down to the neighbor's hedge and hid under that hedge all afternoon. Of course Leone knew exactly where she was because she kept track of her by telephone with the neighbors.

When it started to get dark, Norma decided to go home. When she walked in the house, her parents appeared "shocked" to see her, indicating they had thought she was gone forever. There was no place set for her at the table and nothing but a little bit of left over food on the stove which she had to get for herself to eat. Needless to say, Norma said, she never tried to run away again.

A second incident was with Vern. He and Leone had bought Norma a piano. (Norma said the whole family was quite musical and thought that it ran in the Farr family. Both Norma and Dora played the piano and Jay, who played the trombone as well as the harmonica very skillfully, had a beautiful, powerful bass voice.) One day Norma rebelled and decide she was not going to practice that piano. With out a word, Vern immediately went out to the shed got a board and painted "Piano for Sale" sign and put it out on the lawn. This, of course, lasted only about an hour and Norma was back on the piano again.

At the beginning of the thirties, the Depression hit. Vern and Leone lost their home on Sycamore Street and moved to a little eight-acre ranch in the county on Highway 99E. They had chickens, a cow and alfalfa to feed it, fruit trees and lots of vegetables. Norma remember it as a very pleasant place to live but that she did get sick and tired of eating chicken. They could not afford to buy meat, but they did have chicken.

During the Depression, the Mormon group got together and canned fruits and vegetables in a sort of cooperative. Vern's project was to go out and catch huge quantities of salmon, which were plentiful in the Feather River at the time and bring those in for canning. Then all the food was shared.

Leone had a terrible case of asthma. About the only thing that would relieve her breathing was by using a drug called Asmador. It was a fine green powder and some kind of herb had been pounded into this powder. It also came in the form of cigarettes. But Leone, being so religious and straight, wouldn't think of smoking a cigarette. So she placed a little powder on a small pie plate, lit it to make a little smudge of it, and inhaled the smoke, which gave her relief. It had a very distinctive odor, which Norma said she could identify today if she should smell it. She would have company.

Each in his own way, Vern and Leone experienced enormous struggle. Stake President John Todd (who had performed the marriage of Norma and Freeman Morgan) made a point one time of telling Mary Lou Taylor, Vern's niece, of his respect for Vern, that underneath the rough exterior and human frailities, he was a noble and good man that he loved him.

Vern had such a deep affection for Leone. How painful it was to see her suffer. Marcy Bramwell as a child, remembered seeing Vern in her familly's home for a brief, early morning visit. With tears welling up he would tell of Leone having to again sleep propped up on an ironing board all night. It was heart breaking.

There are other lighter and happier memories, though. Leone's immaculate housekeeping, her beautiful, enviable cakes she produced despite her complete lack of sense of smell or taste, her rightful pride in Jay, Norma, and Dora (who all went on to earn a college education). And Vern's willingness to respond to requests for him to sing ballads of the day, some tearful, some comical.

One cannot leave Vern's story without a sampling of the hilarious humor of his son Jay. At high school age he was six three or four and had feed to match his height. When asked one day what size shoe he wore, he responded, "I really take a nine but tens feel so good, I wear an eleven".

Jay's diminutive wife, Nell, who was survived his death twenty years, misses most his quik wit. Very ill in the hospital the night before he died, his darling Nell said she kissed Jay goodnight and said, "I love you, Jay". With a smile he promptly quipped, "You'll get over it".

Leone "Minnie" JOHNSON [scrapbook] was born on 19 Jun 1888 in Avon, Cache, Utah, United States. She died on 9 Jul 1943 in Oroville, Butte, California, United States. Minnie married ¹ William Vernon FARR on 25 Nov 1915 in Lewisville, Jefferson, Idaho, United States.

Edmund Zebulon TAYLOR Jr. [scrapbook] was born ¹ on 1 Sep 1883 in Kanarraville, Iron, Utah, United States. He died ² on 9 Aug 1960 in Vallejo, Solano, California, United States. He was buried in Gridley, Butte, California, United States. Edmund married Norma Elizabeth FARR on 20 Feb 1907 in Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah, United States.

Norma Elizabeth FARR [Parents] [scrapbook] was born ¹ on 22 Nov 1886 in Lewisville, Jefferson, Idaho, United States. She died ² on 16 May 1965 in Laguna Beach, Orange, California, United States from of cancer. She was buried in May 1965 in Gridley, Butte, California, United States. Norma married Edmund Zebulon TAYLOR Jr. on 20 Feb 1907 in Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah, United States.

Norma resided ³ in 1900 in Lewisville, Jefferson, Idaho, United States.

Norma Elizabeth was the third child born to William Freeman Farr and Emily Frances Champneys on 22 November 1886 in Lewisville, Jefferson, Idaho.

Few details are known of Norma's childhood and young adult years. Her older sister, Maud, with whom she was very close, recalled that they went to dances at Glider's Hall above a store. At a character ball held at the meetinghouse in Lewisville, Norma took the prize money with her "Topsy" characterization. (Her daughter, Mary Lou, remembers hearing of another of Norma's prize-winnning portrayals, that of Little Bo Peep with a live lamb in tow.)

Norma and Edmund Taylor played together as children. It is not known whether they corresponded, but when handsome, auburn-haired Edmund returned from his L.D.S. mission, they knew they wanted to be together forever. They were sealed 20 February 1907 in the Salt Lake Temple.

Beauty would have to be created in their little home in Rigby, Jefferson, Idaho. Norma, lifelong, had an artistic touch and loved to write poetry.

Norma and Edmund's happiness multiplied with the birth of Melba on 28 November 1907. Kenneth LeRoy was a happy addition to the little family on 17 December 1911. Tragically, less than a year later, Melba died of diptheria, a loss felt keenly throughout Norma's life. Seven years later Mary Lou was born 1 November 1918 and helped fill some of the void. Marjorie joined the happy family on 27 September 1923.

On separate occasions, two sisters, Carrie and Lillian, as young adults living in California with the rest of the family, traveled to Rigby to spend a few months with Norma whom they greatly missed.

Norman was a meticulous housekeeper who could lay her hands on anything in the house without turning on a light. She was also an excellent cook who could present the simplest meal during the Depression with a flair that belied the times. She was also extrordinarily talented in sewing on her treadle machine. She never needed a pattern and, especially during the depression years, could combine remnants to create the most professional appearing outfits for the family.

She was in demand to express her talent and creativity in decorating for the annual Green and Gold Balls and other events. Ever thoughtful of others, she magnified her role as mother of the ward during Edmund's service as Bishop of one of the Vallejo, California wards. She is remember for her famous basket in hand, filled with light-as-air rolls and other delicacies, heading for the ill or sorrowing.

In an ever affectionate relationship, Norma tenderly nursed her sweetheart Edmund through severe heart problems until he suffered an attack and died 9 August 1960 in Vallejo, Solano, California.

She valiantly fought cancer, living for several years while it was in remission following stomach surgery. But it reappeared and she died surrounded by her devoted family on 16 May 1965 in Laguna Beach, Orange, California at the home of Marjorie (Pack).

William Henry JOHNS [scrapbook] was born ^{1, 2} on 10 Jun 1885 in Pleasant View, Weber, Utah, United States. He died ³ on 23 Oct 1962 in Gridley, Butte, California, United States. William married Lucinthia Carrie FARR on 17 May 1911 in Lewisville, Jefferson, Idaho, United States.

Lucinthia Carrie FARR [Parents] [scrapbook] was born ¹ on 5 Jun 1890 in Lewisville, Jefferson, Idaho, United States. She died ² on 31 May 1974 in Gridley, Butte, California, United States. Lucinthia married William Henry JOHNS on 17 May 1911 in Lewisville, Jefferson, Idaho, United States.

Lucinthia resided ³ in 1900 in Lewisville, Jefferson, Idaho, United States.

A Short Sketch of My Life as I Remeber It (This story was told by Mom Johns at age 83)

I have not had such an exciting life but a very good and happy one. I was born in Lewisville, Idaho in 1890, to William and Anna Farr. I had three sisters, Maud, Norma and Lillian and three brothers, Vern, Clarence and Lavon.

I had a very happy childhood. My daddy had a farm and we all had to help by picking up the potatoes, hoeing beets and herding cows. Of course, we went to school but we had a one-room school house. In the winters we did not learn much in the short time we were in school.

We did have a lot of fun skating, sleigh riding and playing in the snow. We had a nice warm home to come home to when we got too cold. I have a lot of sweet memories of the parties and dances we went to. It was a happy childhood.

I was sixteen when my daddy and mother decided we had spent enough long, cold, winters in Idaho and decided to move to California. We arrived in Gridley January 16, 1907. We felt that we had found Paradise coming out of snow banks to the beautiful green grass. There were oranges on the trees and roses in bloom. It was a Paradise to us after so many years in the cold climate.

Daddy bought a home for us in town. In the spring, the high water ame and most of the town was covered. They came with a boat and took us to a hotel on Main Street as the water never got up on the Main Street, of course. That was exciting for us. The water soon went down and it did not do too much damage. It only got as high as part of our porch, not in the house.

Daddy was about ready to move back to Idaho or to the mountains. We did not have any drainage or any way to control the high water then. but is was not long before they found a way to control that problem.

We were among the first Mormons to come to Gridley. There were three other families who had come from Idaho. The Dewsnips were one of these families. They had two girls, Laura and Alicia who were the same ages as Lillian and I. They were real pals because the people here did not care much for Mormons settling here. Of course they didn't know anything about Mormons, only all the lies and bad things they had heard. They thought the Mormons were a different kind of people. We had to prove to them that we were no different than they were, only in our religious beliefs. Of yes, the boys wanted to find out what kind of girls Mormon girls were. They soon found out. We put them in their place and they treated us like ladies.

We had a lot of good times and difficult ones. We were still Mormons and we lived up to our standards and ideals. They soon found out that they could not run us out. We had grown from five families to 2000 strong. But enough about that. Back to my life.

After we were in Gridley about a year, I was homesick to go back to Idaho. My sister, Norma, never came to California with us. She had stayed in Idaho and married Edmund Taylor. I worked in the cannery and earned enough money to go back to see her. I stayed with her one winter, then I was satisfied to come back to California and be contented. I never again wanted to leave here. The people in Gridley found out that the Mormons were farmers and knew more about agriculture than they did and began to treat us much better.

We had a lot of good times. We went to dances in other towns, but we would have to go in the afternoon to go very far because we went by horse and buggy. The boys had fancy buggies and real foxy horses but it took hours to get where we were going. But, oh, what fun. Lillian and I always went together everywhere. We always felt safe if we stayed together.

Lillian did leave at this time for Idaho for a visit with Norma. As more Mormon families came to Gridley, we built a hall out of town in West Liberty. We held Church there and also dances and parties.

One night at Church there was a new member. I was introduced to him and he took me home. I guess it was love at first sight. It was Will Johns from Idaho. We went together for eight months and were married in Sacramento on May 17, 1911. Of course my life then changed. We were very happy. We had everything in life we had ever wanted. Will worked with Daddy. They were leveling and building canals. We had a cook wagon and I cooked for the men that were working for them.

The next year we were blessed with our first son Ersal. We were so happy and proud of him. Our love for each other grew stronger. I was kept busy with the baby to take care of and men to cook for, but time went on and so did we with our ups and downs.

Two years later we were blessed with another baby, Orland. At the time this event took place, I stopped cooking for the men and took care of my husband and baby. Will had a brother in Idaho who wanted him to come and help him dry farm. Of course, we were all for adventure.

At the same time, My Uncle Joe (Hansen) with his family of six boys, wanted to go to Utah. So we decided to make a trip of it. We had a nice team of horses and fixed up a wagon just like the campers we have now. The only difference was that we had horses to pull it instead of a car.

We left Gridley in June. It was September before we got to Idaho. We stopped and worked on the way putting up hay. We didn't have much money to go on. Ersal was four, Orland was two. They thought it was great fun riding and sleeping in the same place. We really did enjoy every day of it. As long as we were all together, that was all that mattered.

A year later another bundle of love was given to us, Leland. Of course we did want a daughter but we were real happy with another son. We stayed on the dry farm two years hauling water to drink in the summer and using melted snow in the winter. There was not much money to get by on. We moved into Idaho Falls and Will drove to work. It was here when we got our fourth son LaDell. I was so disappointed when we got another son, but we did love him just the same. Will said we will have a baseball team. He loved to play ball and everywhere we went he played on the ball team. We were still very much in love and it didn't seem to make much difference where we were.

We stayed in Idaho three years and then decided to return to Calfornia. My folks were still there, so I took the four boys and stayed with them until Will could move back. When he got back we moved up to Grenada. Now the boys were big enough to go to school. Will bought them a Shetland pony and they really had a lot of good times roaming the hills, chasing gophers and swimming with their dogs.

We moved onto a ranch and put up hay. I had another bunch of men to cook for and I baked eight loaves of bread every other day. We went to Church and had dances and parties. So it wasn't all work. Some of my happiest memories were when we lived there. One of our happiest was when the Lord blessed us with a daughter. I don't think any baby was ever received with more love than she was. We had waited for a daughter for so long. She was perfect in every way. The boys loved her as much as we did and still do. She was always her Daddy's shining star and we gave up on the ball team. Her Daddy named her Wanda.

We moved back to Gridley when she was a year old. It was nice to be back where we started from, still happy with our adventures behind us. We moved onto a farm in Gridley. The boys were big enough now that they could help their Daddy. We always had a job for them when they were not in school. He always wanted to keep them near him. They had cows to milk in the morning before school and again in the evening. So there wasn't much time for them to play around.

They all got through high school and grew up to be boys we were real proud of. Oh yes. We had some good times along with the hard ones. Every summer we took two weeks off to go on a family vacation. We always went up to Buck's Lake. Even when the boys had girl friends, they went with us. We still have a lot of sweet memories of our trips to the mountains.

Time marched on and the kids grew up all too fast. All of the children got married and we have four lovely daughters-in-law and one son-in-law and we love them all. They gave us nine grandchildren and fourteen great grandchildren. So our family was complete and we are so proud of them all.

We were all alone again as it should be. The children all stayed near enough so that we could see them often and enjoy the babies as they came along. The boys all stayed close to their Daddy and worked with him buying cattle and running the trucks for the long hauls they had to drive.

We had some happy years and some sad ones. Will was in a wreck and was laid up for a couple of years. In fact, he never did get over it. In 1962 Will got sick and was taken from us. I was left alone and after living together almost sixty years, I felt like half my life had been taken away. But we have to go on living as best we can. That is when my family meant the most to me. They were so good to me. I had my little home and so much to be thankful for.

I went to the Temple and was sealed to him for all eternity. Now that I am sure when God calls me home and I meet my sweetheart again, it will be forever. Isn't it a wonderful belief and hope.

Now there is not much more I can or should write about as I am growing old and don't get around too well. But I still enjoy my family and many dear friends and thank my Father in Heaven for the wonderful life I have had.

I hope this will let you know how much I love you all.
Mom

(Carried joined her sweetheart on May 31st 1974 in Gridley, Butte, California - Marcia L Nelson)

John Thomas NIELSEN Jr. [scrapbook] was born ¹ on 21 May 1890 in Ramah, McKinley, New Mexico, United States. He died on 30 Sep 1976 in Sacramento, California, United States. John married Lillian Francis FARR on 24 Jun 1914 in Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah, United States.

Lillian Francis FARR [Parents] [scrapbook] was born ¹ on 28 Jun 1892 in Lewisville, Jefferson, Idaho, United States. She died ² on 15 Dec 1982 in Carmichael, Sacramento, California, United States. Lillian married John Thomas NIELSEN Jr. on 24 Jun 1914 in Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah, United States.

Lillian resided ³ in 1900 in Lewisville, Jefferson, Idaho, United States.

Clarence Henry FARR [Parents] [scrapbook] was born ¹ on 17 May 1896 in Lewisville, Jefferson, Idaho, United States. He died on 31 Jul 1993 in Gridley, Butte, California, United States. He was buried on 3 Aug 1993 in Gridley, Butte, California, United States. Clarence married Margaret Olive Cook MORRELL on 22 Jul 1918 in Logan, Cache, Utah, United States.

Clarence resided ² in 1900 in Lewisville, Jefferson, Idaho, United States.

Other marriages:

FLOWERS, Ethel Pearl

Clarence Henry Farr was born the fourth child to Anna Hansen and William Freeman Farr and their oldest son. He was born in Lewisville, Idaho 17 May 1897
Clarence would have been about eleven years of age when Will and Anna sold out in Lewiston, Idaho and moved to Gridley, Butte, California.

Assimilation into the community was not easy, however. Many of the residents had heard weird tales of the "Mormons" and were not happy about them arriving in droves. When the children were pelted with rocks going to and from school, it was Clarence who responded in kind.

It is not clear why Clarence was in Logan, Utah, when he met the cute little English girl who was to become his wife. Margaret was born in Middleton, Moor, England 7 October 1897. She was an adopted daughter of George Heber Morrell and Margaret Pearson. Her biological mother had left the family and her father permitted L.D.S. missionary, George Morrell, to send Margaret to his wife in Utah in company of a convert family. The Morrell's had two sons and were happy to get a little girl.

Clarence and Margaret were married 22 July 1918 in Logan, Utah. They moved to Gridley to start life together and raise a family. They were blessed with three sons: Clarence Morrell 29 May 1919, Ronald William 10 December 1923 and William Freeman 2 December 1925.

During the great depression days, Clarence purchased a one-room cabin on Park Street in Gridley into which he Margaret and Morrell moved. Over the years he added to the cabin to make it a three-bedroom home for the five of them.

Like his father, Clarence loved to garden. He was also an avid fisherman and hunter and taught his three sons to love these sports. Game was very plentiful in the Sacramento Valley.

The boys grew up with numerous cousins, the sons and daughters of Lillian and Jack Nielson and Carrie and Will Johns. Morrell and young Jack spent time with their grandfather and loved to play pranks on him.

Participating in the extended family tradition, Clarence's family joined the others in the annual camping reunion at Buck's Lake.
All three of the sons served in World War II, Morrell and Bill in the Navy. Ronald had previously joined the Marines.

Clarence loved to play the piano and sing. He played "by ear", never having taken lessons to learn to read music. He had a warm, happy disposition with a ready smile and appeared to enjoy life.

He, along with his brothers and sisters, inherited their father's strong work ethics. Clarence was co-owner with Lavon in the Farr Brothers Sand and Gravel business and drove large dump trucks.

When Margaret died 10 June 1964 from lung cancer, he suffered great loneliness. He married Olive Ruth Porter on 16 April 1965 but they divorced in 1970. He then married Pearl Ethel Earl on 5 June 1971. He enjoyed Pearl's companionship until her death 26 December 1990. Clarence died 31 July 1993 in Gridley.

Margaret Olive Cook MORRELL was born on 7 Oct 1897 in Middleston, Moor, England. She died on 10 Jun 1964. Margaret married Clarence Henry FARR on 22 Jul 1918 in Logan, Cache, Utah, United States.

Clarence Henry FARR [Parents] [scrapbook] was born ¹ on 17 May 1896 in Lewisville, Jefferson, Idaho, United States. He died on 31 Jul 1993 in Gridley, Butte, California, United States. He was buried on 3 Aug 1993 in Gridley, Butte, California, United States. Clarence married Ethel Pearl FLOWERS on 5 Jun 1971 in Reno, Washoe, Nevada, United States.

Clarence resided ² in 1900 in Lewisville, Jefferson, Idaho, United States.

Other marriages:

MORRELL, Margaret Olive Cook

Clarence Henry Farr was born the fourth child to Anna Hansen and William Freeman Farr and their oldest son. He was born in Lewisville, Idaho 17 May 1897
Clarence would have been about eleven years of age when Will and Anna sold out in Lewiston, Idaho and moved to Gridley, Butte, California.

Assimilation into the community was not easy, however. Many of the residents had heard weird tales of the "Mormons" and were not happy about them arriving in droves. When the children were pelted with rocks going to and from school, it was Clarence who responded in kind.

It is not clear why Clarence was in Logan, Utah, when he met the cute little English girl who was to become his wife. Margaret was born in Middleton, Moor, England 7 October 1897. She was an adopted daughter of George Heber Morrell and Margaret Pearson. Her biological mother had left the family and her father permitted L.D.S. missionary, George Morrell, to send Margaret to his wife in Utah in company of a convert family. The Morrell's had two sons and were happy to get a little girl.

Clarence and Margaret were married 22 July 1918 in Logan, Utah. They moved to Gridley to start life together and raise a family. They were blessed with three sons: Clarence Morrell 29 May 1919, Ronald William 10 December 1923 and William Freeman 2 December 1925.

During the great depression days, Clarence purchased a one-room cabin on Park Street in Gridley into which he Margaret and Morrell moved. Over the years he added to the cabin to make it a three-bedroom home for the five of them.

Like his father, Clarence loved to garden. He was also an avid fisherman and hunter and taught his three sons to love these sports. Game was very plentiful in the Sacramento Valley.

The boys grew up with numerous cousins, the sons and daughters of Lillian and Jack Nielson and Carrie and Will Johns. Morrell and young Jack spent time with their grandfather and loved to play pranks on him.

Participating in the extended family tradition, Clarence's family joined the others in the annual camping reunion at Buck's Lake.
All three of the sons served in World War II, Morrell and Bill in the Navy. Ronald had previously joined the Marines.

Clarence loved to play the piano and sing. He played "by ear", never having taken lessons to learn to read music. He had a warm, happy disposition with a ready smile and appeared to enjoy life.

He, along with his brothers and sisters, inherited their father's strong work ethics. Clarence was co-owner with Lavon in the Farr Brothers Sand and Gravel business and drove large dump trucks.

When Margaret died 10 June 1964 from lung cancer, he suffered great loneliness. He married Olive Ruth Porter on 16 April 1965 but they divorced in 1970. He then married Pearl Ethel Earl on 5 June 1971. He enjoyed Pearl's companionship until her death 26 December 1990. Clarence died 31 July 1993 in Gridley.

Ethel Pearl FLOWERS was born on 28 Apr 1901 in Grayson, Texas, United States. She died on 26 Dec 1990. Ethel married Clarence Henry FARR on 5 Jun 1971 in Reno, Washoe, Nevada, United States.

Aaron Lavon FARR [Parents] [scrapbook] was born ¹ on 14 Dec 1903 in Lewisville, Jefferson, Idaho, United States. He died ² on 24 Sep 1979 in Plumas, California, United States. Aaron married Gladys Mae SCHROEDER on 11 Apr 1923.

Someone has said that when an elderly person dies, it is like a library burning to the ground. This statement appears to apply to Lavon because at this point there is a frustrating lack of detailed information available to us on this good and decent man. Those who knew him intimately have preceded him in death.

Lavon was born 14 December 1903, the last child born to William and Anna Hansen Farr.

His family moved from Idaho to Gridley California when he was four years old. His father would have taught him the satisfaction of hard work. He unquestionably learned to fish and hunt with his father, brothers and cousins. Numerous pictures give evidence of their huge success and their enjoyed camaraderie on these ventures.

How Lavon met Gladys Mae Schroeder, born 7 May 1903 is not known. She was born in Colusa, thirty miles to the west of Gridley. She was very pretty, soft spoken, as was Lavon. They made a handsome couple. They were married 11 April 1923. They had no children, but a nephew Jack Nielson, said Lavon spent a lot of time with him and that when it came to hunting and fishing, his Uncle Lavon filled the roll of father since Jack's own father had no interest in those sports. Lavon looked out for Jack's safety and saw that he had the best spots for hunting and fishing.

It was Lavon and Gladys who gave up their privacy and moved into his parent's home to care for Will after Anna died.

For many years Lavon was co-owner with his brother Clarence, of the Farr Brothers Sand and Gravel business. During World War II, both brothers and their wives moved to the San Francisco Bay Area where they worked in the shipyards. Lavon was employed as a heavy equipment operator and feminine, quiet Gladys was an overhead welder. After spending a few years in Gridley after the war, the brothers and their wives moved to Quincy, California up in the beautiful wooded Plumas County area where they operated a Dodge/Plymouth auto agency for several years. They later again returned to Gridley.

Lavon and Gladys, together with a close friend, were on a hunting trip near Lake Almanor in Plumas County, a place and activity that Lavon loved, when he suffered a fatal heart attack on 24 September 1979.

Gladys lived another eleven years, dying in Yuba City, Sutter, California 15 August 1990. They are both held in loving remembrance as gracious, gentle beings by the few nieces and nephews still living who knew them.

Gladys Mae SCHROEDER was born ¹ on 7 May 1903 in Colusa, Colusa, California, United States. She died ² on 15 Aug 1990 in Sutter, California, United States. Gladys married Aaron Lavon FARR on 11 Apr 1923.