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Alma  Reuben Turley 1869-1938

The Theodore Turley Family Book, pp. 157-164

Alma Reuben Turley was born December 29, 1869 in Beaver, Utah to Isaac and Sarah Greenwood Turley. His ancestry has been traced back to Birmingham, England.  He was the fifth child in a family of twelve children, eleven boys and one girl.

His family resided in Beaver, Utah until he was seven years of age and then moved to Salt River at Lehi, Arizona in answer to a missionary call, as did so many of the Arizona pioneers.  They moved to the Salt River Valley with the Daniel Jones Company and arrived at Lehi on March 6, 1877.  The family lived in a tent and his mother, an extremely large woman, suffered from the intense heat in the Lehi Valley, so Alma's father got permission to move his family to Northern Arizona where the climate was cooler.  In his life story Alma states, "My father then moved my mother and family in the spring of 1878 to St. Joseph (now Joseph City) near the Little Colorado River.  We there lived the United Order.  We stayed there about one year, when my father moved his two families to Snowflake.”

It was while they lived in Joseph City that Alma was baptized on April 3, 1879 by Joseph Richards and confirmed the same day by his father, Isaac Turley.

His schooling began in Snowflake, Arizona. Alma states, "I never had the privilege of attending school but very little, for I had to spend my time on the farm herding cattle and horses, and my parents were on the move so much, pioneering new settlements."

He also states, "In the spring of 1885, my father, my mother and family moved to Old Mexico because of the persecution that was made against polygamy." Colonization seemed so desirable in that country. Alma stayed in Snowflake until his father could return for them.  They had a hard time moving to Mexico.  Alma goes on to say, "In the winter of 1886 father returned to our former home in Snowflake, taking me along to drive our cattle and horses to Old Mexico.  It was a very hard trip moving them in the wintertime. When within a few days drive from our home, we received word that my mother had died with a hemorrhage.  I was left with a hired man to continue the rest of the way, driving the stock. Father hastened on but got home only in time to meet the Saints returning from her burial in the new cemetery.  The following fall of 1887 I returned to my old home, in company with father Ralph Ramsay and family.  I lived with my brother Theodore and family that winter and worked for Charles L. Flake that spring and summer, tending his farm for awhile. In the fall I worked for William W. Willis." It was here that he met his future wife, Delilah Jane Willis, daughter of William Wesley Willis and Gabrilla Stratton Willis.

Alma writes:  "In November (?), 1888, in company with William R. Willis of Taylor and Hans Yorgensen, with their wives, I started to Utah with Delilah Jane Willis to be married in the St. George Temple, traveling by team and wagon, taking sixteen days.  I had some difficulty in getting a license because I was not twenty-one years old and no parents or guardian to give their consent, for the Government had enacted some very strict laws for marrying in the Temple because of polygamy.  But through the work of a good County Attorney making out papers that I had no parents or guardian in the United States, we were only detained one day.  Delilah Jane Willis and I were married November 3, 1888 in the St. George Temple by J. D. McAllister. We made the round trip in five weeks."

He goes on to say:  "In 1890 I bought a city lot, built a two-room house on it, also a good barn and corral.  We lived there for ten years.  I then bought a home and farm in Woodruff, Arizona where I moved my family, my wife and five children, having lost one child, a little blue-eyed girl three years old.  While we lived in Snowflake, I made our living by freighting for the Government from Holbrook to Fort Apache; I also did some farming.  After moving to Woodruff, we had a great deal of trouble by having the dams go out on the Little Colorado River, through floods, which caused a great deal of hard labor and hardships and many privations for the necessities of life."

Their move to Woodruff in 1900 took them into a life of hardship, trying to get a living from the soil without any assurance that water would be available.  Many years passed before Delilah became reconciled to living in Woodruff.  She longed to live in Snowflake with her people. Thirteen healthy children were born to Alma and Delilah Turley--six sons and seven daughters.  Delilah was always active in the Church.

Alma was an excellent farmer and provided well for his family.  He loved good stock, cattle and horses particularly. Besides freighting and farming, he also did some road contracting.  A man of shy and retiring nature, Alma found it difficult to take part in Church and social affairs.  In spite of this, he was honest in his dealings, loved the gospel, and taught his children to be honorable men and women.

One of his daughters writes about her father, Alma:  "My father had faith in God and lived according to the principles of the Gospel. As I remember, he read daily the scriptures, the only reading I remember him doing.  He was a tithe payer, attended his meetings.  He kept the Sabbath Day and we always had family prayers and blessing on the food." She also states: "There was never any vulgarity or profanity in our home.  He was a good provider for his family.  I remember him rocking and singing to his babies in the evening.  He didn't sing a variety of songs–the one I remember him singing was 'Down by the River's Verdant Side.'  He was never raggy or dirty, and he was regular with his bathing, and mother always kept all of our clothes in good repair.

He was a parent who had his children work along with him.  His animals were always well cared for, and his garden and fields free of weeds."

His daughter also writes:  "A man in town was always having black hay to haul and put in his barn because it got wet with rain.  This man said, 'If you want green hay to put in your barn, watch Al Turley when he cuts his hay, he never has black hay.'  I never remember tromping black hay.  Father would get up two o'clock in the morning after he had cut the hay the day before and rake it up in piles.  Then the next morning he would get up at the same time while the dew was

on the hay and cock it ready for hauling.  If a threatening storm caused him to haul the hay before it was dry enough for storing, he would sprinkle salt on it in the barn."

Alma writes in his life story:  "The first fall after getting a dam in that was secure, my son Charles H. was called on a mission to the Southern States. We were thankful for him to get this call and always felt like we were greatly blessed in keeping him in the mission field.  On September 27, 1924 another son was called to take a mission to Nevada in the California Mission.  Tillman Willis was the second one to go."

He continues to write:  "I have always been of a very quiet, reserved disposition, not caring to take part in public affairs.  I spent the winter of 1935-36 in Mesa doing work for my dead kindred, doing endowment work for one hundred fifty male names.  I also did some sealings.  My health beginning to fail in 1932, caused from taking a heavy cold settling in my lungs."