April 30, 1901, was a beautiful spring day in Cache Valley. Trees, flowers,
planted fields, even weeds, were transforming the valley from winter brown
to a mottled hue of green. Likely a slight breeze from the west gave motion
to everything — trees, new fields of grain, and the cumulus clouds we observe
that time of year.
That morning, David Howland Nash, age twenty-four, from Franklin,
Idaho, and Ida Larsen, age eighteen, from Coveville, Utah, stepped into
a white-top buggy in front of her home and they began a dusty, tiresome,
day-long journey to Logan to be married.  They traveled alone, passing
through Richmond, Smithfield and then to Logan. When they arrived that
afternoon they went to the courthouse and obtained a marriage license,
then drove to the home of Ida's Grandfather Larsen where they stayed the
night.  Quite early the next morning Ida awakened and looked out the
window.  She saw Dave walking solemnly up and down the lawn.  She
wondered how long he had been walking.  Later that day they were mar-
ried in the Logan Temple.
The story which follows is of Dave and Ida, and the farm on which
they lived their life together.

INTRODUCTION

Twenty five years ago, Mary and I spent part of two summers, 1966 and
1967, collecting most of the materials for this history.  It was a pleasant
experience as we recreated lives of Dave and Ida. Much of it I already knew,
from what I had heard through the years and from knowing them personally.
In order to complete the story we interviewed several people who knew them.
I provided questions as we cross-checked certain facts and problems; and
Mary, in shorthand, wrote down our conversations.
In this manner we interviewed Dave's three sisters in the summer of
1966, Emanett Lewis, Estelle Wright and Laura Atkinson. We interviewed
Aunt Nett the week before she died. Most of the information on Dave's
youth comes from them and from Enos Holden, who was raised in the
Nash home, practically as a brother to Dave. Enos is dead now, but in
1966 he had clear, fond memories of his years with Dave.
Most of the information concerning Ida's early years came from a
short autobiographical sketch she has written, and from interviews with
her brother, Reuben Larsen, and from Vendla.  The stories of Dave and
Ida's parents and grandparents came from a number of short histories
which are available.
One of the most difficult tasks was to establish when certain events
happened, particularly concerning the building of the Roosevelt-Linrose
farm.  Some of this was established through a short history of Andrew
Nash which was written by Isaac H. (Ike) Nash.  Andrew and Ike were
Dave's older brothers.  Ariel was essential in this respect, and so were
Vendla, Paul, Wanda, Uless, and Sabina.
Concerning the farm we talked with all the above and also H.R. Bing-
ham, a neighbor who lived in Linrose before the Nash's arrived. We talked
with Tom Smith, and Bill Hulse and his wife Lottie.  Bill worked on the
farm from 1914 to 1928 and he was extremely helpful.  We also have
information from Einore Moser, who helped Ida cook for the farm work-
ers, and from Alton Nash and Alice Jenkins, two of Ike's children.  The
information concerning the irrigation problems came from my research in
the offices of the Twin Lakes Canal  Company.
The story of Dave and Ida was originally printed and given to family
members in 1968. It is reprinted here, along with a few clarifying bits
of information that Mary and I have since gathered. We are also including
a complete list of their descendants (collected during 1992), plus short
biographical statements on the members of the 2d and 3d generations.
We have also included all the known addresses.
Our purpose in writing and distributing this story is threefold: to il-
luminate the lives of two strong, wonderful people, to tell the story of the
horse-powered farm life for those of you who will never know it, and
most important to provide the descendants of Dave and Ida a source of
pride and unity in their family heritage.  Remember, in the year 1992 we
have reached the sixth generation from Dave and Ida, and we are scattered
from Georgia to British Columbia.
The homestead-farm-ranch in Linrose molded the values of all the
children of Dave and Ida, and approximately two-thirds of their grand-
children.  Linrose, between Weston and Preston (it is not on any road
map), is where five sons and one married daughter. Hazel, had farms; one
daughter, Vendla lived in Salt Lake City after her marriage.
In several respects the separate farms mentioned in the following pages
were communal.  That is, certain major tasks such as planting and har-
vesting were shared, and some machinery-costs were shared. It reinforced
shared values all through the 1920's, 1930's and 1940's before it began to
break down.  It did not break down because of feuds or disagreements,
but because new machinery replaced the need for group labor. Where all
of us harvested sugar beets together, or a crew of ten of us "put-up" hay,
now a single person with three machines does it all.
My personal memories of Dave and Ida, my grandparents, are positive
and very strong. I was 18 when Dave died and 20 when Ida died. Both
of them influenced my life. Dave was always around the farm work, and
always went on fishing and hunting trips. Ida was the perfect grandmother.
The entire family influenced me.  I worked, fished and hunted side by
side with Grant and LaMar; and the only way I knew whether the man
in the distant field was my father, Uless, or his brother Paul, was by the
hat or shirt they wore.  Ariel was my Bishop. I played, hunted and fished
with Victor, Bill (Uncle Ike's grandson), David, and Mondell; played and
got into trouble with Richard; skated, sledded, and went skiing with Brent,
and worked in the fields with D.A.  I was scoutmaster to Bruce, Philip
and Stewart, and mingled with all the girl cousins in between.
There are some things left undone, and additional sources could surely
help.  However, we believe that we have most of the key information, and
what errors may show should be minor.  Mary and I have enjoyed re-
searching their lives, and I have also  enjoyed numerous conversations
with many of you during 1992.  We hope all of you find this a pleasant
memoir, and perhaps a surprise or two within these pages.
January 1993


THE PROGENITORS

The descendants of Dave and Ida can look back upon a set of ancestors that
were quite remarkable. Most of them were ordinary men and women by their
standards, but those who might qualify for the title "pioneer" have compelling
stories to tell.
Dave's ancestors were Welsh and English, except the English were
several generations in America.  Ida's ancestors were Danish and English.
Dave's father and Ida's mother were immigrants.  Both their parents and
grandparents were moving west because of their Mormon beliefs. All this
is significant because it helped mold their values and their future.
The Nash ancestors can be traced back at least four generations
prior to Dave Nash to a man named John Henry David.  He was the
chorister, bell ringer and sexton at a parish church in Kidwelly, South
Wales.  We know little more concerning John Henry David or his son,
David Davies, excepting perhaps the fact that they lived in the 1700's
in Kidwelly.
David Davies, Jr., is the next ancestor.  He was born in 1801 and
grew up to be a poor shoemaker. When he was twenty- three he married
Mary Nash, the twenty-one year old daughter of a highly successful black-
smith named Isaac Bartlett Nash.
Concerning the name David, Davies, or Davis, use these rules. The
Welsh did not use surnames in the 18th century, but do in the 20th century.
A contemporary writer might decide to use a certain surname reflecting
the first name of a particular ancestor, but another writer could determine
the surname by the first name of a man in a different generation.  Also,
in Wales Davies is pronounced Davis; therefore, depending upon who has
written the lineage, the assigned surname might vary somewhat.
The Nash's came from neighboring Saundersfoot, but they were im-
migrants from England, arriving in Saundersfoot sometime in the 17th
century, possibly earlier.  We do not know when they moved to Kidwelly,
across a bay, but we do know it was because Kidwelly was a major manu-
facturer of tin.  Isaac Nash was the principle blacksmith in the Kidwelly
Tin Works.
Isaac Nash was very much opposed to the marriage of his daughter
to the shoemaker; and when David and Mary's first child was born just
six days after their marriage, Isaac took the newborn baby into his own
home and raised him. Later, he officially adopted the boy and gave him
his own name, Isaac Bartlett Nash, and the name David/Davies disappears.
The junior Isaac Bartlett has this to say about his real father, "Father
could not supply her (mother) with means as he was usually out of work
and when he had the means he would spend it without sending her any."
The junior Isaac Bartlett Nash (father to Dave) is one of those whose
story is somewhat amazing.  He was very short, as were most Welshmen,
and completely dedicated to his religious beliefs.  He was raised by his
maternal grandparents and taught to call his mother by her first name.
When he was twenty-one (1845) he married Eliza Morris, against her
parents will.  He worked at various jobs, including the Tin Works, in
which his blacksmith skills could be used, and with a year of his marriage
to Eliza, both were baptized into the L.D.S. Church.
In 1849 they started for America, but they did so against the wishes
of nearly everyone, particularly his wife's parents.  As members of the
first Welsh company to come to Utah, they landed at St Louis, Missouri,
about the same time that thousands were flooding across the Great Plains
in search of California's gold.  Isaac B. and Eliza survived the hordes of
gold seekers and the cholera epidemic which followed them across the
plains. They arrived in Salt Lake Valley in the most discouraging of cir-
cumstances - snow, sickness, no tent, no wagon, and extremely meager
belongings.
The next two years were most difficult, and it ended with Eliza asking
for a divorce.  Isaac B. still loved her and he asked Brigham Young to help
patch up their differences. Eliza kept insisting on a divorce and it ended
when Brigham faced her and said "You go to hell. You shall not have a
divorce," (recorded Isaac Bartlett's journal).   Nevertheless she got her
wish.  It has always been believed that they had no children, but in 1991
Claudette found evidence that they buried a small baby in Salt Lake City.
In 1852 Isaac B. married Hester Elvira Poole, affectionately known to
her contemporaries as "Aunt Vie." That same year they made an arduous
journey to California to see her mother and brothers, and in the process
became part owners of a gold mine in Sonora.  (Mary and I have
been to Sonora, just forty miles from Oakdale, and have located the gen-
eral area of the mining claim; but the records showing specific locations
are missing.)  A flood washed out the claim and they moved to Union
City, near San Francisco, where they purchased a lot and built a house
and a blacksmith shop.  Later they decided to return to Salt Lake City,
but they received very little for their property because of an improper
deed that had been given them.
In Salt Lake City Isaac B. rejoined some of his Welsh friends and
became assistant choir-master to the first Tabernacle Choir. He was with
President Brigham Young in 1857 when word was received that a US
Army was coming to Utah to put an end to the "Mormon Rebellion."
Later he was designated by Brigham Young to escort the thirteen surviv-
ing children of the mountain Meadows Massacre back to their homes in
Arkansas and Missouri.  (This is an unfortunate episode involving the
killing of over one hundred immigrants by a combination of Indians and
Mormons in Southern Utah).
Aunt Vie traveled with Isaac B. to St. Louis and they lived there during
most of the civil War. His generally undiplomatic comments concerning
local politics, siding with the South, kept him in jail part of the time, but
his British citizenship gave him his release on each occasion.  However,
he had had enough of St. Louis and they moved back to  Salt Lake City
in 1864, just in time to move to  Franklin with a group of settlers.   He
lived in Franklin the remainder of his life.
In 1867 Isaac B. met and married Martha Howland as a plural wife.
Martha was just sixteen at the time. Her entire life is a record of remark-
able strength and personal sacrifice.  The Howland's originally came from
Vermont, but before she was born her father, Henry, moved to Illinois. A
probably true family legend says that the first Howland to come to Amer-
ica was John Howland, a servant on board the Mayflower.
The Howland's were converted to the Church when Martha was one
year old.  Later they began the trek West, but Henry died of cholera on
the banks of the Missouri River. The widowed mother, Diana Case How-
land, brought Martha and two other daughters to Salt Lake City, eventually
moving to Franklin shortly before Martha was married to Isaac B.
Diana Case Howland was born in Pennsylvania. She was well- edu-
cated and provided a livelihood for her family by teaching school.
Eventually she married Bill Hickman, his ninth wife. Unfortunately Bill
Hickman was a difficult man who kept company with Porter Rockwell,
and the marriage did not last. Those who remembered her knew her as
"Grandma Hickman." It is through her ancestry that we trace our lineage
back to 11th century England.
Martha was a strong and completely pleasant woman. She bore twelve
children, four of whom died in childhood.  David Howland Nash was the
third son and fifth child of that marriage. Ike, her second son, has written
that her entire life was one of toil and sacrifice for her husband and her
children.  "She was deeply religious. . . a wonderful mild disposition. . .
unselfish to a fault."  Her final act lends simple dignity to Ike's feelings
for his mother. She was killed in 1916 while trying to save some children
from a burning house. She was in her sixty-fifth year.
One more incident in Isaac B. and Martha's life is worth repeating.
In April 1885, when David Howland was nine years of age, Isaac B. was
arrested for cohabiting, legal terminology for having more than one wife.
He was sentenced to three months in the Idaho State Penitentiary in Boise.
He wrote the following letter during his trial: (his original spelling)

"Blackfoot
Novbr 6th l885

Dear Vie.
"I thought I would commence writing to you today, so that I will not
have to much to write tomorrow, after our sentence is passed, for tomorrow
night about 8 o'clock we leave for Boise. What our sentence will be we all
can guess, by the way the Judge has sentenced some horse thieves. He gave
one man 25 years. They had two indictments against him, another for 20
years, another for 14 years, and he said that he was sorry that the penalty
was not more. He is a harsh judge, and we expect nothing but the full
penalty of the law. Well dear Vie, I got your letter yesterday and I was glad
to hear from you. Your letter was encouraging and it done me good to read
it.   I hope you are all enjoying good health, as this leaves me at present.
Thank God for his mercies to us. We have had a heavy storm here night
before last. It snowed hard and drifted awful. . .
Today we got our sentence. Phelps 6 months, four hundred dollars;
George Parkinson 12 months and 300 dollars. Blackburn 6 months and 300
dollars; Biorn 6 months, 400 dollars; Porter 3 months and 150 fine and
myself, 3 months and no fine. Thank God for that. I wrote this in jail.

Good bye, God bless you, I will write as soon as I go up.
God bless you, good bye. I am writing this among a lot of horse thieves
and murderers.
IBN
We are going off tonight.

(Mrs Elva Kelley, daughter of Nellie Nash Parkinson, was kind enough
to give me the original letter. I have it along with some other small papers,
mostly poems that Isaac B. composed.  Laura Atkinson had a letter of
similar content written to Martha at the same time).
Isaac B. served his time, in which he organized a prison choir, then
returned to Franklin where he lived out his days.  Even now his talents
appear prodigious. He wrote literally dozens of popular songs and hymns.
He wrote poetry and plays, producing them as well. He was an excellent
singer, and still he practiced and taught his profession as Franklin's first
blacksmith.  Some of his ironwork, including Franklin's first plow, is on
display in the Franklin Relic Hall.  Throughout his life he was deeply
committed to the religion he had embraced in Wales. Twice each year he
walked or rode to Salt Lake City for the semi- annual conference.  He
died of cancer in 1907 when his son David Howland Nash was thirty-one
years of age.
The Larsen ancestry is equally remarkable and strong. The Larsen's
come directly from Denmark where Ida's great-great grandfather, John
Christiansen, lived in the 1700's.  His son was named Lars Johansen, and
Lar's son was Christian Johansen Larsen.
Christian J. Larsen was born in 1831 and closely parallels the life of
Isaac B. Nash.  He left a 200-page journal of his life which reflects his
commitment to his beliefs.  He worked in a clothing factory from the
time he was seven years of age, when the working days were twelve hours
long.  By the time he was fourteen he was an apprentice tailor.  He joined
the LDS Church when he was nineteen and began a life comprised of
almost total missionary labor.
For five years he preached and worked with the earliest Danish Saints.
He became the first mission president and missionary to Norway, spending
much of his time in administrative duties an in prison (six months) for
being a Mormon (he converted the jailer).  In 1854 Christian J. and his
wife, Barbara, left Denmark for Utah in the company of a large number
of Saints.  They reached St. Louis Missouri, in the midst of a cholera
epidemic which killed several of the company. Their only son, John Chris-
tian Larsen, Ida's father, was born just two months after Christian J. and
Barbara reached Salt Lake City.
The young Larsen family spent the next four years in Ogden, but in
1858 they moved to Ephraim, Utah.  They were living there when the
Black Hawk Indian War began, and it led to a chilling episode. Christian
J.  and his nine-year-old  son John  C.,  were alone  in a wagon when they
were confronted by twenty or so unfriendly Indians. A hair-raising chase
took place, and they were shot at several times from very close range.
Later they discovered the following damage:

". . . one bullet had broken the butt end of my gun, another bullet had
settled in by binding ladder (sic), one bullet had cut my horse lines, which
I held in my hands right under my hair, and one bullet had penetrated my
vest, close to my left vest pocket; all the shots were fired from the right side
of the wagon, and the shots were fired from so close range that where they
struck the powder marks in black were visible in every case."

One bullet also grazed the hair of John C. Shortly after, 1868, the
Larsen's moved to Cache Valley and made their home in Logan.
Christian J. Larsen spent the next few years helping build the railroad
through Cache Valley, and also doing church work, particularly as a mis-
sionary, then as a Stake Patriarch (I have his ordination certificate hanging
on a wall adjacent to mine.) He was also a polygamist and in the late
1880's he was forced to leave home in order to stay out of prison. During
the next three years he traveled several hundred miles east where he
worked on the railroad and then to Washington Territory for the same
purpose.  Eventually he was able to return to his home in Logan.  He
died in 1905, a grand and diligent man of eighty-four.
There is also a beautiful story to be told concerning Christian J.'s
wife, Barbara Jensine Dorothea.  This story has been told many times,
and in various forms, but this is the story as can best be determined.
When Barbara Jensine "s mother was a young girl she worked as a kitchen
maid in the home of a wealthy and noble Danish family, the Oldenburg
family.  The heir to the family, Christian, was just a few years her senior.
The two came to know each other and the result was the birth of Barbara
Jensine Dorothea.  Unfortunately  Barbara's mother was not of the proper
nobility and they were never publicly married (we believe there was a private
marriage ceremony, but cannot find the document to prove it.) Nevertheless
they maintained a close relationship, and for a few years, perhaps seven or
eight, their daughter, Barbara, lived with the Oldenburg family.
When young Christian was to be publicly and prominently married,
Barbara and her mother were obviously an embarrassment.  The family
found a willing husband for the mother and they were sent to live in
Copenhagen. A few years later, young Christian became King Christian
IX of Denmark, and his legal children became King Frederick VIII of
Denmark, King George I of Greece, Alexandra the Queen of England and
mother to King George V, and Dagmar the wife of Czar Alexander III of
Russia.
Barbara Jensine, following her husband and chosen faith, came to
live with the Saints, giving birth to her son in a dirt- floored, willow-sided
hut just two months after she had walked and ridden by ox-team across
a thousand miles of desolate plains.  She was a homesteader's wife.
All this has some significance.  When Ida Larsen Nash, my grand-
mother, was a girl, she spent a lot of time with her "princess-grandmother",
who instilled in her some of the values of gentility that Ida attempted to
maintain.  Grandmother once told me that her grandmother told her never
to milk the cows, and always set a proper table.
The only child born to Christian J. and Barbara was John Christian
Larsen, father of Ida Larsen Nash.  John C. was like his father.  He spent
his entire life working his farm in Coveville, as it was known then, and
in doing church work.  He was Bishop of Cove for over thirty-four con-
secutive years  (Mary and I have talked to five different people living in
Modesto/Oakdale who knew "Bishop Larsen," including two Harrison's
whose father traded their Logan home to Bishop Larsen for his Coveville
farm, and an Andrews, who said he raced horses against John C. on several
occasions.  By all standards, John C. was a most saintly and revered man,
even Brother Andrew, the horse racer agreed.
John C. married two sisters, Susannah and Mary Ellen Titensor; con-
sequently, he too had his difficulties evading prison.  The eldest sister,
Susannah, is our progenitor.  She was born in Manchester England, and
crossed the ocean and the plains when she was six years old.  She lived
in Richmond Utah, where her father was an machinist/mechanic, and from
the account she has left she had an extremely hard and destitute childhood.
Ida was the second child, and first daughter of that marriage.
Almost all of these progenitors left substantial homes and secure, well-
ordered lives in order to follow their religious convictions.  Each faced a
hard, self-effacing life because of that decision.   They have my deepest
admiration.


THE EARLY YEARS

David Howland Nash and Ida Larsen were teen-agers in the 1890's. They
lived in neighboring communities, Dave in Franklin, Idaho, and Ida a few
miles across the state line in Cove, Utah.
Dave was born in Franklin, 31 August 1876.  For twenty-five years
he lived with his parents, working and learning how to be a blacksmith
and a farmer.  When he was a young boy his friends called him "Dick,"
but one day his father said jokingly that he had not planned to give Dave
a middle name like his two older brothers, but had just wanted to call
him plain, simple Dave. He was often taunted, by the brothers of course,
as "Plain, Simple Dave."
Dave was teased somewhat, but he meted out far more than he took.
In 1966, his three sisters - Estelle, Net, and Laura - were asked about
Dave, the first comment each one made referred to "that big tease."  He
teased his older sisters, his younger sisters, his mother, his aunts and eve-
ryone.  He locked his sister in a cupboard and would not let her out, put
potatoes in their boots, teased the girls when their boyfriends came court-
ing, tied cats together with a string and threw them over a wire to watch
them fight.  These incidents were the first mentioned.
More than likely he did a little running because of his teasing. At
any rate he became the fastest runner in the county, fast enough for some
to bet on him.  He was a pretty good high jumper, too.  Ike has written
of those years, telling of the gloveless boxing matches they held, sponta-
neous rodeos, the evening bonfires, and the race track on the street running
north in front of Shrives', Corbridge's and Doney's.  He also states the
boys made a few friendly forays into the watermelon patches of Whitney
and the apple orchards of Coveville.  Franklin's heavy soil just did not
grow good melons or apples.
Dave obviously had a healthy, exuberant boyhood. He also grew up
working in his father's blacksmith shop in Franklin. He began by pumping
the bellows for the forge, and ended up a husky young man who was a
good blacksmith, and according to Bill Hulse and Enos Holden, about the
best horseshoer around. Enos said he saw Dave shoe one mean mule that
would kick, lifting Dave entirely clear of the ground, but Dave never let
go.  Several people have memories of how Dave learned blacksmithing
from his father.  When he worked the forge it was "Blow! Blow, Davey
blow!"  Later it was "Davey, Davey, strike while the iron is hot!"
Dave also worked at farming. The family owned some land in old
Nashville, approximately two-three miles north of Franklin, and Dave
farmed it with Ike, and at times Andrew. Dave was a farmer-blacksmith,
or perhaps a blacksmith-farmer; but whichever came first he is remem-
bered as a young man who was a very hard worker.  He did not have
much formal schooling. When it came his turn to go to the Academy
(high school) his brother Ike (they called him Nen) was called on a mis-
sion.  Dave unpacked his bags and stayed home to run the family farm.
The chance to go to school never came again.
Ida was born in Logan, 5 June 1882.  For nearly nineteen years she
lived with her parents.  When she was still a baby her parents sold their
Logan home and moved to the farm in Coveville, just south of Franklin,
and on the Utah side of the Utah-Idaho border.  She went to school in
Coveville until she was ten, then her mother let her stay with her Larsen
grandparents in Logan in order that she might have a better education.
From that time until she was seventeen Ida lived in Logan during school-
time and on the farm during the summers.  Ida has written of how she
enjoyed the summers on the farm, but her mother was firm in not allowing
her to work in the fields or even milk the cows.  Her mother and grand-
mother wanted to raise her as a lady.
Ida was a beautiful young girl, with a dark complexion. Vendla repeats
this story which was told her by Aunt Hazel, Ida's younger sister:
"One morning, as they were all kneeling down for family prayers,
Grandfather had just come in from feeding his prize bull. He looked at
mother and said, Ida has eyes like the bull, such a kind expression, and a
beautiful shade of brown.' The kids all laughed but mother was crushed.
Grandfather really thought he was paying her a compliment.
She was also a popular teen-ager and an excellent singer.  Ida, her
brother John and Rose Titensor, formed a trio and sang all over the valley.
Ida did not go to college, but through her mother's influence she was
a well-mannered, knowledgeable young lady.  Ida is remembered, even
from her teen years, as a person with an intense sense of loyalty.  This
characterized her entire life.

LINKS