Joanna Durney Whitehead

Joanna Durney Whitehead, Sarah and John William Whitehead

1895

Beautiful Joanna Durney was born on the late summer day of 31 August 1867 in Richmond, Cache, Utah. She was the youngest child of James Holiday and Sarah Ellison Sutton Durney. The family had lived in Cache valley for a few short years. 

Joanna's father, James, was a polygamist who died on 29 December 1873 leaving two wives and twelve young children. He left his families in the process of homesteading land in Richmond which for Sarah Durney would not prove out for six more years. 

Undoubtedly, Joanna and her family would have been devastated at the loss of the young husband and father. Living conditions of the time would have been difficult enough without this loss, and Joanna being the youngest, would not have understood all of the implications.

Her days probably were filled with chores around her home and property. Her older siblings  by-and-by began to marry and leave their mother's care. But most of this close-knit family did not remove too far from one another.

Joanna herself married at the age of 17 a young man named John Charles Whitehead on January 28, 1885 in Franklin, Oneida county, Idaho--a community just two and one half miles north of Richmond. 

John left Joanna quite often in their newly married life traveling to other communities hauling freight to support his family residing in Franklin. He eventually decided to become a "squatter" in Cherryville, Idaho. He went to work clearing land and built a house on the property. John and Joanna were young, strong and determined to improve their land along with stables for their cows. They also planted orchards of which they watered from ditches they had built from a nearby creek. 

There were ten other families who also homesteaded land along the creek. They often joined together for church, school, socials and dances.

Joanna and John traveled to Logan, Utah by wagon and were sealed to one another and their oldest daughter Ethel May in the Logan LDS temple on 16 May 1888. Temple president, Marriner M. Merrill sealed the young couple together. Joanna surely knew president Merrill as her father, James H. Durney, had served as his ward clerk in their former Richmond ward. 

The Whitehead family grew to include children:

Ethel May, 1885
Bertha, 1888
Edith, 1890
John William, 1893
Sarah, 1895
Margaret, 1898
James Leo, 1901
Florence Ordella, 1902

John Whitehead became a successful sheepherder. He raised the sheep in several areas and employed many men to help him especially during shearing season.

Joanna and John were able to build a new, large, eight-room house in Cherryville in 1901--the same year they lost their newborn son, James Leo. The remaining children happily grew up playing on the hills of this area tucked away in beautiful Cache Valley. 

John became more prosperous and was able to prove up more land in Cherryville and leased land on Sugar Creek as well as other properties. He raised horses and cattle including milk cows. Joanna and John's children were taught how to work hard. They helped him run a milk wagon from Cherryville to Franklin for many years. 

John became ill in the fall of 1916 and died on 29 April 1917 in Franklin, Franklin, Idaho. For Joanna this must have seemed like a bad dream she had similarly lived through as child. The couple still had three young children in their home--the youngest just 14 years old. 

Joanna continued in Franklin, renting her home, and remained there until a short time before her death in Preston, Franklin, Idaho on 10 January 1929 leaving a large posterity to mourn her.

James Holiday Durney 1831-1873

James Holiday Durney

James Holiday Durney was born 7 July 1831 in Montrose, Forfarshire, Scotland, a maritime community, to cooper and miner James Durno and his wife Margaret Duncan.

Family lore tells us that James took up the profession of last-making at a young age.

Missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints came into the Montrose area. James was baptized on 24 November 1850 by Joseph Booth.

Following a strong desire to join with the Saints in America, James was able to travel to Liverpool and with 345 other British Saints board the ship Elvira Owen which was bound for and landed in New Orleans on 15 February 1853. Joseph W. Young was the presiding Church leader for the group on ship.

James joined an unidentified group of Saints and crossed the plains in the summer of 1853. He settled in the Grantsville, Tooele, Utah area.  It very likely James was called with several others  to settle there. 

In 1852 the few Saints living in Grantsville were fearful of attacks by the Goshute Indians. They wrote to Brigham Young asking for advice. They requested that a dozen or more families be sent to reinforce their settlement to help guarantee their security. 

In the October General Conference of 1853, 159 members of the Church were asked to settle and live in the Grantsville area. These pioneers acted on the advice of President Brigham Young and built a fort of their settlement. 


The fort was comprised of 4 mud or rock walls which were 3 feet thick, 12 feet tall, 30 rods long. The walls were aligned north to south with a gate in each wall and chinks placed in them for shooting muzzle-loading rifles. The settlers built sections in proportion to the amount of space each occupied. Log cabins were built near the walls and the center of the fort was saved for public buildings including an adobe meeting hall. In the year 1855 there were 251 members of the Church in the area.

James purchased land and raised sheep in Grantsville. It is very likely that he helped in the building of the fort being a strong young man just 22 years old. He was described as about 5’ 8’ tall with black hair.


When the 37^th Quorum of the Seventy was organized in Salt Lake City  on 12 January 1854, James was a member listed as a member of that quorum.

After settling the Grantsville area for about a year and a half, James married an English immigrant named Sarah Ellison Sutton on 23 April 1855 in the Endowment House in Salt Lake City. Sarah also immigrated on the ship Elvira Owen. We must assume a friendship and probable romance began aboard ship.

The Grantsville settlers experienced much hardship while living there. The summers were hot and the winters were cold and snowy. They had plagues of grasshoppers, drought and starvation in the years 1854 to 1860.

In September of 1860 James became a member of the Grantsville Agricultural and Manufacturing Society and participated in their exhibitions.

Deseret News, 31 October 1860

It appears Durneys were hardy and very devoted to their new religion—accepting calls to serve in any way they could. At this time in LDS history, men from all Mormon communities were asked to gather their teams and provisions and help with the Mormon migration of immigrants crossing the great plains of the United States. James took a team of his own and made several trips back east.

On 19 October 1861, James married in polygamy Jane Grant Gordon. She and her family had arrived just the month previous from Montrose, Scotland—the same area in which James had lived. Family lore states that James knew Jane in Scotland. If this was the case, he probably knew her and her family. One would not suspect a romantic relationship between the two in Scotland as Jane would only have been 12 when James emigrated. But the marriage must have been arranged perhaps through correspondence before the Gordons left Scotland.

By the spring of 1864 James was anxious to leave Grantsville. He purchased property in Richmond, Cache, Utah and moved his second wife, Jane there first. He divided his property equally—half for each wife. 

During the summer of 1864, James went back to Grantsville to move Sarah and their children. By 1870, the two Durney families lived in different parts of Richmond.

The Durneys were active church members while living in Richmond. James served as a ward clerk under Bishop Marriner W. Merrill who later became the first president of the Logan Temple and and a member of the 12 apostles.

June 15, 1833 is James' christening date

On 29 December 1873, at the young age of 42, James died leaving his two wives and young children. Reportedly, James had suffered with an enlarged prostate for about five years and had suffered greatly. He is said to have lived and died a true Latter-day Saint.

Each wife had some land and belongings with which to continue. James’ second wife, Jane, married Edmund Buckley again in polygamy and moved to Franklin, Franklin, Idaho. She died in 1908 and is buried in Franklin.

Sarah continued living in Richmond until her death and burial in 1901.

Sarah and James had the following children together:


Alice Ann, 1857
James Holiday, Jr., 1859
John Sutton, 1861
Mary, 1864
Joanna, 1867

Jane and James had the following children together:

Martha Gordon, 1862

Peter Sutton, 1863

Joseph Gordon, 1866

Hyrum Gordon, 1870

Isabell Gordon, 1872

Sarah Ellison Sutton Durney

Sarah Ellison Sutton Durney was born in St. Helens, Parr, Lancashire, England 23 September 1830 into an upper middle class family the second daughter and child of John and Mary Ellison Sutton.

Her father, John Sutton was a grocer and tea dealer in Parr. The Sutton name may have been long-lived in the county as the town of Sutton was very close to Parr.

As a young adult, Sarah employed herself making straw hats.  She and her family became acquainted with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1850 and she, her parents, John and Mary Sutton and all but their youngest son joined the Church in January of 1851.

Mary Sutton’s brother, James Ellison, and his wife Alice also joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1851.

James Ellison

Both of these families desired to join the Saints in America. But James did not have the means to pay for the trip. James and Alice prayed for a way to be prepared for them to make the trip. Finally Mary and John, who were doing well, offered to pay their way. After the arrival of these two families in Utah, they both settled in Nephi, Juab, Utah.

John, Mary, their seven living children along with James his wife Alice and their five children traveled to Liverpool and boarded the ship Elvira Owen on 15 February 1853. Joseph W. Young was the presiding Church leader for the 345 British Saints traveling on the ship.

Joseph W. Young

Within a short time smallpox broke out onboard. Captain Owen was very compassionate and helpful in arranging a makeshift hospital/quarantine tent on the deck of the ship. The captain and Elder Young were fearful the disease might affect and kill half of the people on board.

Elder Young asked the Saints for a day of fasting and prayer to petition the Lord to remove the disease and let the sick become healed. Miraculously, only two more were affected and all but one of the original sick quickly recovered.

The ship Elvira Owen arrived in New Orleans on 31 March 1853. The captain said it was the quickest trip on record for a ship of that kind. The Saints proceeded by boat up the Mississippi River reaching Keokuk, Iowa on 13 April 1853.

The Suttons and Ellison’s joined Elder Young’s company, which he named the ten pound company, to cross the plains. They departed between June 1^st and 7^th, 1853.

Indians would often frighten the Saints by riding up to their wagons wearing war paint. They were appeased by accepting sacks of the traveler’s much-needed flour. Close to the end of the trek, their food ran out.

When the group came within ten days of Salt Lake City, teams sent by the Church with provisions met them and helped them along their way into the valley—arriving in Salt Lake City on 10 October 1853.

As stated previously, the Suttons and Ellisons helped settle Nephi, Juab, Utah. Sarah’s father, John, was 65 years of age at his arrival in the United States. His wife, Mary was about a decade his junior. He purchased a small amount of property in Nephi for farming. But because of his age, and the fact he had been a grocer in England and not a farmer, he probably was not interested in owning a lot of land.

A fort had been built in Nephi around 1851 to help protect its residents which numbered 229 when the Suttons and Ellisons arrived in Utah in 1853.

John Sutton continued in Nephi until his death on 4 March 1865.

Mary Ellison Sutton died in Provo, Utah, Utah on 24 November 1869.

The Sutton family must have been acquainted with a young man from Scotland named James Durney who also sailed on the Elvira Owen. It does not appear he traveled across the plains with their group, but he also arrived in the Salt Lake Valley in the fall of 1853.

James Holiday Durney

James settled in the Grantsville, Tooele, Utah area, bought a farm and raised sheep. This association surely led him back to the Suttons, because he married Sarah on 13 April 1855 in the Endowment House in Salt Lake City.  Sarah and James returned to Grantsville where they would continue until 1864.

While in Grantsville, James was asked by the Church to help bring immigrants to the Salt Lake Valley. Sarah also wanted to do her part. Family lore says she walked six miles from her home to help harvest grain, and she sewed buckskin pants and gloves to earn money to by a team of oxen calves. 

She had no milk to feed them so she made hay and grass tea until they could graze. Feeding calves tea made from hay, grass and grains was a common practice in England.

James used this team to make a trip back east to bring immigrants west.

On 19 October 1861, James married in polygamy Jane Grant Gordon. She and her family had arrived just the month previous from Montrose, Scotland—the same area in which James had previously lived. Family lore states that James knew Jane in Scotland. If this is the case, he probably knew her and her family. One would not suspect a romantic relationship between the two in Scotland as Jane would only have been 12 when James emigrated. But the marriage must have been arranged perhaps through correspondence before the Gordons left Scotland.

Jane and Sarah likely had a good relationship with one another as Jane named her second child and first son Peter Sutton Durney.

James took Jane in the spring of 1864 to Richmond, Cache, Utah where he purchased land northwest of town. He divided the land with one half separate for each wife. James worked in Richmond sawing wood and plowing farms with his own oxen until August of 1864 when he went back to Grantsville to move Sarah and their children to Richmond.

Sarah and James had the following children together:

1. Alice Ann, 1857
2. James Holiday, 1859
3. John Sutton, 1861
4. Mary, 1864
5. Joanna, 1867

In the late 1860s, LDS ward relief societies began coordinated health programs. President Brigham Young assigned two of his plural wives, Eliza R. Snow and Zina D. H. Young, to promote health-care education among the Saints and to train midwives. In 1873 he asked each ward relief society to appoint three women to study nursing and midwifery, and a nursing school was opened for their training.

It was in 1873 that Sarah was called to be one of the midwives for Richmond. Sarah Jane Lewis wrote, "Eliza R. Snow came to Richmond to find two women to be sent to Salt Lake to study midwifery. I, Sarah Jane Lewis and Mrs. Sarah Durney were chosen.” 

Because midwives were called by priesthood authority, they were accorded trust and respect similar to that given ecclesiastical leaders. They often dispensed herb treatments, passed on by experimentation and word of mouth, and sometimes administered health blessings.

James died shortly after Sarah's calling on 29 December 1873 and is buried in Richmond. This untimely death left Sarah with a young family; Alice Ann was sixteen and their youngest child, Joanna, was just six years old.

The following  year, James’ second wife, Jane, married Edmund Buckley again in polygamy and moved to Franklin, Franklin, Idaho.

It is not known how Sarah continued to support herself and her children after the death of her husband. Perhaps her calling as a midwife brought in money and other goods.

 In the year 1878, the Cache Valley Stake President Moses Thatcher, urged the people to get legal titles for their land and make arrangements among themselves for the property lines.

In the early days of the settlement of Cache Valley, settlers were basically squatters on public lands since there were no federal laws or surveys taken at that time. The Mormon church took full responsibility to assign land to settlers.

To receive a land patent, the potential owner must at least construct a house on the land. Sarah received patent rights to her property in Richmond in 1879.

Sarah’s son John was living with her in the year 1900. She also spent the late winter of 1901 with her daughter Alice Ann and her husband Joseph A. Careswell in Ogden, Utah.

Sarah died on 10 November 1901 in Richmond, Cache, Utah and is buried there.

Ida Simone Merenz Davidson

This is an autobiography of Ida Simmone Merenz Davidson. It is not the complete story of her life, but we are grateful for what she left.

After my mother [Bertha Noemi Flamand] died of consumption, when I was 24 months old, my father brought my sister Helene [9 years], my brother Gabe [4 years] and me, Ida [2 years] to America from Aure, France in 1912.

My father had a half sister who was married and had twelve children of her own. They asked my dad to come to live with them. They had a large ranch in Montana; so we three children stayed with them while my father built a small cabin for himself on land adjoining the ranch. He stayed there three years by himself. This is what was called homesteading. After so long, the government let you have the land for yourself. Dad then turned the land over to the Franks in payment for our keep for four years.

It was so interesting to live in such a large family. So many things happened that are still vivid in my mind. They had huge wedding chivarees where the men drank moonshine liquor and had fist fights. We kids were so frightened. We had under the beds where we were safe and out of the way.

My brother was whipped with a cat-of-nine-tails [three leather straps fastened to a handle] for being accused of doing something which later was proven he didn’t do. He carried those scars to his grave. I saw a man who had too much to drink try to crawl through a barbed wire fence. There was blood all over his white shirt. Guess he got where he was going. I didn’t wait to find out.

Two of the Frank boys were in the Navy during the World War I. Grandma Frank made all their own sausage, ham, wieners and we churned all our own butter, made huge pans of homemade bread which I remember was so good with homemade butter and jam.

I started milking cows when I was five, rode horseback, gathered eggs and fed the pigs. We all had chores to do, and we did them well. It was a good life though. Grandma Frank was very strict with all of us including her own. But she was good to us too. One event that took place every Friday night without fail was eight o’clock rosary on our knees in the parlor with a chair to learn on. Guess it takes about an hour to say the rosary. We were all good Catholics.

After we left Franks, Dad rented a farm. My sister, brother and I worked real hard to help make a living. Of course, all was done with horses and by hand. No tractors or milking machines or hay bailer then. I don’t think we minded the hard work though, cause we seemed to always be happy and healthy.

During the winter of 1919 and 1920, Dad to put us in a Catholic orphan’s home, because the winters were too severe, and he couldn’t make a living. So Dad worked for the sisters at the home as janitor. I contracted the flu which was so bad those two years. I was administered the Last Sacraments of the Catholic church. Anyway, I got better and was able to go back to the ranch in the spring. My sister [Helen] didn’t fare so well. She had diphtheria, appendicitis and pneumonia. She was in the hospital a whole year. After she was well, she stayed and went to high school and became a dietician and worked in the hospital. She didn’t come back to the ranch anymore—only to visit.

Helen and Ida Merenz

It was such fun growing up in a community where everyone knew everyone else. Large community picnics were held on the 4^th of July. Also ball games, sack races, three-legged races, flag pole climbing, catching greased pigs and horseshoes. Then all the marvelous food the women were preparing and dances at night until four o’clock in the morning. Everyone was so tired and happy with the whole family together.

I guess my brother and I were kind of special cause we didn’t have a mom. So the ladies made over Dad and always kept check on my brother and me. We couldn’t have been naughty if we’d have wanted to. The ladies all saw to that.

My brother and I had to walk four miles to school. We milked anywhere from eight to sixteen cows before we went in the morning and again in the evening. 

In the winter, we had a sleigh driven by two horses. Dad put bells on it and would go around and pick up all the kids for a sleigh ride. Everyone loved him and his sleigh. They called him Jumper cause they couldn’t pronounce his name, Jean Pierre Merenz.

When I was thirteen, my brother fifteen, we had a very sad experience. It happened in November at the community where we went to school. There was also a store, a creamery and dance hall. There was a turkey shoot held there a couple times a year. People from all of the ranches came. The little children were put to bed for naps in the store where the owners lived upstairs. Everyone was outside at the shooting range [my brother and I were both good shots] when someone noticed smoke at the store. By the time everyone ran over, the store was in flames with three children inside. Needless to say, it burned to the ground with no water available. 

Well, this was real cold weather time. Dad was working eighteen miles away at the time. Gabe and I were so frightened, we wouldn’t put fire in the stoves. It’s a good thing it was a weekend and Dad came home cause Gabe and I were in our beds almost freezing to death.

On Sundays, most of the young people would get together on horseback at someone’s ranch. We’d ride steers, rope calves or hogs—anything that would run and try our hand at riding untamed horses. This was all good fun—no one seemed to ever get hurt. Our parents all thought it was good training for us. 

About this time, my sister Helene was working for Charles M. Russell, the famous western painter. This was in Great Falls, Montana. We visited her there. The house was so lovely and Mr. and Mrs. Russell treated us so gracious. She was a grand person. The cabin where Mr. Russell painted was so interesting.

My dad got an old Model “T” Ford. My brother and I took it to dances. I would lay on the running board with a flash light because the lights always burnt out.

I went with a boy who was the youngest of a family of 16. I couldn’t go with boys but met them at dances. We danced and had supper with them. My dad didn’t let me go with anyone until I was 17.

I knew the young men driving in the hub mobiles were loaded with liquor. They would sell it to the farmers and in town. They had to go right by our ranch. I didn’t know that sometimes Ernie was with them.

My group from Eden would go to Stockett to dances. There was always a group from Great Falls that would come and get in fights with our guys and break up the dances. I found out later that Ernie was part of that group from Great Falls.

When I was 16, I went to help during thrashing time about 12 miles from where my home was. I helped the lady cook for the thrashers. At night, this good-looking guy kept coming out. I thought he was visiting the lady I was working for. After the third night, I found out that he was coming to see me, because the lady was his aunt. I let him drive me home for the weekend. He lived in Great Falls. He had a Chrysler Roadster with a steamboat whistle on it. When he got to the town of Stockett, about six miles from my home, he would blow the whistle and I could hear it. The sheriff would take out after him for disturbing the peace—but never got him. Later he and the sheriff became friends. In the winter, he would come out as far with the car as he could, and I would go to meet him on horseback. My dad decided that he didn’t like him because he was too old—nine years older. I would sneak and meet him anyway about 1 ½ miles from home. We went together two years before we got married.

My brother married his school teacher--the one who taught him in the eighth grade. She was nine years his senior.

I went to Great Falls to get work doing maid service while still going with Ernie. We got married when I was 18 on the 1^st of September. He was driving a laundry truck. We drove to a little town and got married during his lunch hour. He gave me my engagement ring in April.

We lived in a one-room apartment. I didn’t know much about housework when I first got married. Ernie was driving a laundry truck and wanted to teach me to do my housework instead of going back to bed. When he would make his calls outside of town, he came to get me to take me for a ride. If I didn’t have my housework done, he wouldn’t take me, and I would cry and cry. He didn’t like a dirty house. His mother was very clean.

I got pregnant right away. When I was seven months along, my sister-in-law came into town off the ranch. She had had Gilbert and came in for a check-up. We walked to town and were waiting on the corner to cross the street. Two dogs came across and knocked me down. I fell as hard as I could on my backside. We laughed so hard cause it was funny. The dog came and licked my face which made it even funnier. I went up to the apartment and called the doctor. He told me to get right up to the hospital. He told me I would have an April Fool’s baby. Marilyn was only six pounds coming a couple of months early.

When Marilyn was about two, we had a big kitchen cabinet that hooked on one side. She was missing one day. Everyone was looking up and down the street, and I finally remembered she had been playing with the pots and pans. She had crawled in and shut the door. She had cried herself to sleep. Marilyn used to lay on her stomach looking into the neighbor’s basement windows and fall asleep with all the neighbors out looking for her.

Once, I ran up to the store for something one day and left the door open. The breeze blew a black feather from out of her pillow back and forth. When I came back, I found she was petrified, sitting as far back in her crib as she could. This is why she is so afraid of bugs.

We had a coal stove and bucket. She was always in the coal eating it. She was always black from that. When Marilyn was three, Ernie went out to help the Eagles decorate graves for Memorial Day, and I went with him. They put an Eagle flag on the graves. We left Marilyn in the back seat asleep. It was about three miles from home.

I was helping him find the graves and he got quite a ways ahead of me. I found an interesting headstone made of flat shale rock. Ernie turned around to see where I was and all he could see way my head out of a grave. I went right down through the casket and everything. I said, “The Devil’s come to get me.” He said to the day he died, he would never forget the look and color of my face.

Ida, Ernest

Beverly and Marilyn in front

When we got back to the car—no Marilyn asleep. The caretaker told us he saw a little girl trudging over the sand hills going home. Finally, we found her with a dirty face crying about one-half mile away. She woke up, couldn’t see us so she started home.

Several years after Beverly was born, we moved into our own house which we were in the midst of building. It was not completely finished—not all roofed or windowed. Every time it stormed, we would grab the kid’s beds and put them where the roof was finished. Marilyn is three and some older than Beverly.

Ernie’s mother, brother, and sister lived next door to us. Murray was working on his garage, and I wasn’t paying attention to what Marilyn and Beverly were doing. For a long time it was quiet. I went out and looked for them. They had a 2” x 4”  and a hammer. They had used a whole sack of nails and pounded them into the 2” x 4”. Murray never swore, but he was threatening them within an inch of their lives. 

Beverly and Ida

In 1936, we were in Chicago at a convention when Ernie’s mother died. It took two days to drive back without stopping.

In 1939, Dad disappeared. He walked to town one day to come up for dinner. He was working on the west side of town. He was walking which he loved to do. He just vanished. We had his name and description broadcast on the radio. We went clear out in the country and had the river drug, and to this day, he has never been located or do they know what happened to him.

During the war, Ernie wanted to go on a ship and be a machinist and join the Navy. So he went to Seattle, because there was no other place around Great Falls. They didn’t take him in the Navy, because he had had a mastoid [ear] operation. He had had a lot of experience when younger so they told him to go to Spokane or Salt Lake, because they needed railroad people. This was 1941. So he went to Spokane but he was six months over the age limit to get on there. So they told him to go to Salt Lake or Ogden. He came to Ogden and they hired him despite him being over the age limit. The kids and I came to Ogden in January of 1943--the war having started in December of 1941.

Ernie and I were married for 43 years--some good and some not so good but mostly good. He died April 24, 1971 of emphysema and heart failure.

Ernest and Ida Davidson

I hope you will enjoy this video of Ida's life.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnLKAAttJik&t=47s