Joseph Hartley Turley

Sharing our Links to the Past
by Wally and Frances Gray

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Joseph Hartley Turley (1872-1941)

The Theodore Turley Family Book, pp. 207-209

Joseph Hartley Turley was born at Beaver, Utah on June 19, 1872, the son of Isaac and Sarah Greenwood Turley. Joe was four years old when his father and mother moved to Lehi, Arizona, where they were called to help make a settlement. That summer the family moved to the northern part of the state to St. Joseph on the Little Colorado River, Isaac having been asked to change his mission to that settlement as Mrs. Turley was a big woman and could not stand the heat in the Salt River Valley.

Isaac Turley joined the United Order in St. Joseph, turning a number of horses and cattle in to the order. They also had fruit trees, grape vines, shrubs, and rose bushes, and started the same in St. Joseph. In the Joseph Hartley Turley yard are still some of the roses from the original roots. They are the old fashioned cabbage rose and are very hardy. The family moved to Snowflake in 1881 and finally down into Mexico where they helped to colonize at Colonia Juarez and Dublan.

In May, 1893, Joseph went on a mission to England, from Colonia Juarez, and labored near where his grandmother Ann Hartley had lived. He looked up his great uncle Joseph Hartley for whom he was named. On his return he married Abbie Nina Cluff, daughter of Orson Cluff and Harriet Ann Bean. They were married June 7, 1895.

To this union were born five children: Goldie, 1899; Harvey, 1901; Sarah, 1904; Joseph Hartley Jr., 1905; and Reah, 1911. Reah died in infancy and Sarah died in 1920. Joseph’s wife Nina, died on March 12, 1912, in Colonia Morales, Sonora, Mexico. The family migrated to northern Arizona the same year, Nov., 1912.

A brother, Hyrum, lived at Woodruff and Joseph established a home there for his children. He went to St. Joseph as a mud mason and met Joanna McLaws, daughter of John Mc Laws and Sophia DeLaMare while boarding at the McLaws hotel. The two were married on May 5, 1915. To this union were born four children: the first, twins Walter (accidentally killed at age 13) and Nina, Mary, and Georgia.

The family lived in Woodruff the first year then moved to St. Joseph where Josie was from. Joseph was a mud mason and brick layer by trade and worked on many buildings in Holbrook, Winslow, Snowflake, and Joseph City. One of the last buildings he plastered was the LDS church building in Joseph City. He was an artist at his trade and could build a house from basement to roof complete. He built his family a nice home in Joseph City and in front of it stands a beautiful petrified wood fence which he built from rocks out of the badlands to the north of Joseph City which he had hauled on a wagon. The family lived for a short time in Mesa and in the last years of Joe’s life he was quite interested in genealogy. He died with pneumonia in the Winslow hospital on October 30, 1941, at the age of 69. He is buried in the Joseph City Cemetery.