Francis Starkey
|
Francis Starkey Sr. the son of John and Mary Pearcy Starkey, was born August 28, 1832, at Hurley, Warwickshire, England. He was a twin; there were eleven other children. From childhood, the family was all taught the gospel from the Bible, so the events that followed came naturally.
Francis and his brother William found work at a newly built railroad going through Warwickshire and Straffordshire. They split timber and then laid them for the iron rails to rest upon. The work was hard, but occasionally they would get a day or two off to go home to their families. Other times, the brothers had to find lodging nearby. Francis was walking near his work one day when he found a leaf from a book lying in his path. He read the words on the page which impressed and puzzled him. Some days later, when he went into the village, he heard two LDS men preaching on the street corner. He was startled to hear the words he had found on the torn page. At the time, this only deepened his curiosity. Francis was boarding with some friends by the name of Baker (relatives of William Baker in Roy). One night, instead of their usual friendly selves, they seemed to be hurrying through the evening meal. Lying in bed, pondering their peculiar behavior, he heard strange voices below. Puzzled, he got out of bed and listened at the knothole in the floor. The voices were reading a strange story. The next night, Francis himself hurried to bed. Down on the floor with his ear again to the knothole, he was introduced to the Book of Mormon. After that, he visited with the Mormon missionaries often and soon joined the Latter-day Saints’ Church. From that time on, Francis dreamed of the time he could leave England and join the saints in Utah. It would take money. He had to help his parents with what money he could earn. Within a few years, he had met Jane Mathews (the daughter of Joseph and Susannah Hemmings Mathews) who was also a convert to the Church. They were married on May 27, 1861 (Note 1). Mormonism was an unpopular religion and persecution was rife. Francis was a hard, energetic worker, always trying to make enough money to get to America; but due to the prejudice against Mormons, he lost one job after another. After four children were born to them (Joseph, Sarah Jane, Mary Hannah, and Elizabeth Ann), the couple decided in desperation to leave the area and seek work elsewhere. They packed their few possessions, and the six started walking across England to where they were not known as Mormons. At Moberley, Cheshire County, they stopped to earn money for food. They found work with a kind and considerate man. Here they remained for years, began buying a house, but always had the hope of earning enough money to get to Zion. Four more children were born (John William, Eliza, Francis, and Rachel). Mr. Starkey and his three-year-old son, John William, contracted typhoid fever. The child did not recover (Note 2). Mormon elders who traveled without purse or script sometimes came to the Starkey home. Sometimes they were ill, or their feet were sore and bleeding, or sometimes they were badly in need of a rest or comfort. Mr. Starkey repaired their shoes and Mrs. Starkey repaired and patched their clothing. The Elders were a great source of strength and spirituality to the family. When Francis’ eldest son and daughter (Joseph and Sarah Jane) reached the courting age, the father borrowed money and sent them to Utah so they could marry within the church. Joseph worked in a mine and sent money home to help his family get to Utah. (Sarah Jane received only small wages as a hired girl and was expected to supply her own clothing, so she was unable to add much by way of funds.) With this aid and a loan from the LDS Emigration Fund, they were now ready for the anticipated trip. On May 17, l882, they sailed on the U.S. Nevada. Several families of saints whom they knew had preceded the Starkeys to Utah and settled in Roy. William Baker’s daughter, Diana Robinson told of the Starkeys’ arrival: We were getting breakfast one morning when we saw a neighbor coming across the field waving a newspaper back and forth excitedly. When he came in, he said he had come to tell my father that he was a “wanted man” and for him to get out of the country as fast as he could before they got him. The neighbor showed father the article. When he read it, he laid his head on the table and cried. We children had never seen our father cry before and we wondered what great misfortune had come to us. Mother came and looked at the paper and asked what it meant. Father raised his head and smiled although he could hardly speak. It is Frank and Jane Starkey come at last. They had stopped in Salt Lake City and advertised for their old friends the “Bakers.” Of course the neighbor had been joking. Now the train from Salt Lake City was coming to a stop in Sandridge (Roy), and from the interior of the passenger car came the Starkey family from Old England with all their earthly possessions: two trunks, a few bundles of various sizes, and a box or two. Francis Starkey, Sr., the hard-working Englishman and his wife, Jane, who was wearing a dark dress and white linen apron in which she held her knitting, descended. They were followed by the children: Mary Hannah, 17; Elizabeth Ann, 15; Eliza, 11; Francis, Jr., 8; and Rachel, not quite six years of age. They were warmly welcomed by the townspeople. This was the realization of their dreams (Note 3). Under the guidance of William and Reuben Baker, Francis bought 160 acres of land. This land was west of the sand ridge (3500 West and 5300 South), and most of it was in the swampy part of Roy; but Mr. Starkey was experienced in drainage and soon had it drained of the excess moisture and found the soil rich and fertile (Note 4). They pitched a tent until a two-room cabin could be built. With a mule team and single plow, they began working the land. One of the first things Francis and Jane did was to apply for naturalization papers to become citizens of the United States. Francis assisted in many pioneer projects in the country. Probably one of the most important was the building of the Weber Canal. He owned a team of mules which they used on the job. This team seemed to know when it was quitting time, and no amount of persuasion would make them go if they decided it was time to stop. The workers were amused at the antics of the Englishman and his mules. Francis earned a good bit of stock in the canal by his labor in its construction. One day while he was working on the canal close to a hillside, the earth began to move and slide before he could get out of the way. He was completely covered with dirt. The men working nearest him saw the accident and uncovered him before he smothered, but he had been hurt internally. This injury caused him distress the remainder of his life. However, he continued working on his farm making a good living for his family (Note 5). Francis did not forget to pay the Emigration Fund Organization for the money borrowed to come to America, and he contributed generously so that others might come. He enjoyed good books and newspapers. He took great pride in raising prize hogs, vegetables, and fruits. He was a good farmer having a fine orchard, berry patch, and vegetable garden. This family raised nearly everything they ate. In the summer, Jane arose early, picked berries, and was soon on her way to Ogden to deliver them (Note 6) (Note 7). Most of their children married and settled in and around Roy. Francis died April 9, 1911, at the old homestead and was buried in the Roy cemetery. Before he died, he called his children to his bedside, and there he bore his testimony to them that God lives and that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is true. He admonished them to be faithful to its teachings. Jane lived for two more years. The gravestone erected over them was engraved with their testimony—I KNOW THAT MY REDEEMER LIVETH (Note 8). Hadley Heritage compiled by Ralph Hadley, a grandson
Notes:Note 1: Francis heard Jane sing at conference and other religious meetings, but meeting her through a mutual friend, Sarah Baker, he preceded to fall in love. Jane was born May 2, 1833. She was a trunk maker by trade at a box factory. She was very faithful to her convictions that Mormonism was true although her people felt that she had brought a great disgrace upon them. Francis and Jane were married at Uttoxeter, Staffordshire, England. It was said many of the trunks she made found there way to Utah.
Note 2: Because Francis was slow in receiving his strength after his bout with typhoid fever, his kind employer sent him to the seaside to recuperate. While he was gone, the tax collector came for the taxes. Jane, knowing the man as a kind neighbor, lined her children against the wall and said, “These are all I have. Which one do you want?” Jokingly he said he would take the girl on the end. Later he found employment for Sarah Jane as a nurse girl with a kind lady. The older girls were also given employment; and although their wages only amounted to a few pounds, yet they were given a home and their clothing which relieved the situation for the rest of the family. Joseph, the oldest, helped his father on the large estates where he drained the land and took care of the acre of lawns. Note 3: Francis had $1 when the family arrived. William Baker, who had been one of their missionaries in England, met the Starkeys and took them to a house he owned in Roy. Note 4: Francis moved his family to available land in Roy that was considered worthless. Because he was not yet a citizen, he could not homestead; so he moved on what was considered “school land.” This property was at the bottom of Roy (west) and was as wet as the rest of Roy was dry. Francis had laid drains in England, so he knew he could make this piece productive, and he did. Note 5: After the accident, Francis walked bent over, his head almost touching his knees. Speculation is that he may have broken his back but escaped with his spinal cord intact. Note 6: There are no pictures available of Francis and Jane Starkey. Jane had a blue birthmark on one side of her face that caused her embarrassment, and she was sensitive about it. She preferred to not have her picture taken. Francis said he would not have one taken without her. She was an attractive woman in spite of her blemish, and her special spirit made up for whatever she seemed to think she lacked. Note 7: To augment their income, Francis and his son Frank gathered salt from the shores of the Great Salt Lake. The salt water was flooded onto the land and left to evaporate. About two to three inches of salt remained on the crust (much the same process the commercial companies use in working the salt today). The Starkeys gathered the salt and sold it for fifty cents a ton. It was an uncomfortable living. Salt stuck around their ankles and filled their shoes and sifted into their clothes. Salt dried on their eyes, in their noses, and in their mouths. Wherever it accumulated, it caused raw, burning sores, but the harvest of salt was a necessary part of their living to earn money for the things that the farm could not produce. Note 8: Francis Starkey brought his headstone with him from England when he came to Roy in 1882. The Starkeys had only a few trunks and bundles, yet he found room for the headstone. We know they were in a dire state financially, and still Francis managed the headstone. How did he get it and why? The family only knows what we know. Perhaps the headstone meant so much to Francis because of his religious nature and the inscription on it, “I know that my Redeemer liveth.” Francis stored the headstone in the old granary where it collected dust, bird droppings, and wasted grain. His children climbed over it and around it the many years it lay there. When Francis died, his wife had the headstone cleaned up and put on her husband’s grave in Roy. This wasn’t the end of the stone. Francis Starkey had made quite a bit of money in his life, and the story went that he had hidden some of it somewhere. When anyone dug a ditch on the old place, they watched extra carefully for the rumored buried money. None was ever found. Wallace Hammon, Emma Hammon Clark’s eldest boy, had a dream. He vividly saw the money hidden in the old headstone. He could not wait until he could check it out. He unscrewed the inscription plate in the front and put his eager hand inside. He searched every inch of the interior but came up empty-handed. When he put the plate back, he found he had lost the screws. He never found them either, and because they were peculiar to the headstone, they could not be replaced. The plate still hangs grotesquely, forever a witness to a boy’s dream. When Mrs. Starkey passed away, she was buried next to her husband under the same headstone. Before she died, she asked that a tree be planted by her grave, so she could hear the birds sing. Her daughter brought a tree from Oregon and put it in place. It is now over seventy years old. Roy City later objected to the tree and wanted it dug out and removed. Lillian Starkey firmly said, “NO! You’ll pull my grandparents right up out of their graves.” The threat worked because the tree is still there waiting for the birds to sing. |