Charles A. Hall

I (John Bammes) can tell you (Ted Wassmer) exactly where he was and what he was doing at the time you mentioned in your letter (when you were young). Grandpa decided to take Horace Green at his word and “go west young man” since he had lost an eye and been fired as a machinest for the Burlington Rail road. He slod his farm in Grand Praire (near and now part of Rock Island Illinois) and moved his family to Pueblo, Colorado. He figured correctly tat Pueblo would grow in view of the fact that it was a cross roads of several important transcontinental rail roads. In those days, rail transportation could make or break a town. He bought a piece of land and was once again in the dairy business. About this time mother met and married my father. My mother was the oldest child and had been doing a lot of work around the dairy and when she left, a lot of work fell to Wilford since John was too small to do much. About this time (two yearsa fter the Spanish American War) the economy of Pueblo suddenly wound down and times were tough. My mother and father decided to try Salt Lake City which was in a developing mode. Dad got a job at the Salt Lake Elecric Company which made and installed combination gas and electric light fixtures. Grandfather decided there was money to be nade in the new boom towns surrounding the newly discovered copper mines that had opened in the new boom towns surrounding the newly discovered cooper mines that opened in southern AZ (Douglas and Bisbee) So Grand dad did quite well finacially and used to send money home to Pueblo. Finally he sent for Grandma to sell the farm and come down. Grand dad had a house of sorts behind the bakery. About that time Grandma had the dairy farm sold and was ready to come, Pancho Villa or some other bandits were raising hell along the Mexican border and Grandma decided she did not want her children to grow up in such dangerous sistuation and especially since there were not yet any pblic schools in the area or even a decent hospital. Douglas is almost on the Mexican border and AZ had only reently become a US territory. the place where Grandpa wated to live was inhabited almost entirely by spanish speaking mexicans who sill thought the Gadsen Purchase was illegal and wanted the Americans out. It really was a dangerous situation with little of no law enforcement and everyone (including young Wilford) wore a gun for his own protection. I have seen and handled that gun and talked to Unlce Wilfrd at length about it. Grandma decided she was not going to take the family into that kind of a situation. So.... she had been in correspondence wiht my mother and decided to take the family to live in Salt Lake. That is where and when your mother(Hester Sadie Hall) met and married your dad. (Theodore james Wassmer). Wilford fianlly came to Slat Lake after Grand dad closed the bakery and store in Douglas. Grand dad was too proud to go and be reconsiled with Grandmother so he just told her that she had decided to do as she pleased and that was alright with him. For a lot of years he joined an army or mineral prospectors and wandered all over AZ looking for a strike. He fianlly ended up in the area around Kingman AZ where he worked a little claim. We do not know much about what happened to him or a period of about 20 years...

Grandmother’s funeral was the first time I had seen grandpa Hall. He came from Littlefield Az to see grandma before she died and I am sure they made it up to each other at that time....

On my home after being discharged from the army i stopped in Littlefield AZ to visit Grandfather. I finally talked him into coming home with me and staying with my folks awhile. He did. While visiting in La Verne, he joined the LDS church again, was ordained an Elder and a month later he was run down and killed in a car accident. (letter 1984) John Bammes

There are about four versions of this story but Hester told this version. When she was very young her father just walked off and left them. A cousin in TX (Pattie Hall Carter) said that he remarried, he never divorced her but just took a second wife and had lots of children who are in TX today. Polygamy was still in practice, no one knows exactly why he left them. They had come from Independence Missouri to Grand Junction, Co and that is where he left them. ....waited until she could get enough money and brought the children up to SLC, feeling that in the bosom of the church they would do better.

The story says that he was an attorney for the Hedrikite church and was coming to SLC to fight the LDS to retain the title to the Temple.  The Hedrikites owned the land that the temple should be built on in Independence.  In 1966-8 Dean and Shirley went there and talked to the people who were the trustees of the church and they couldn't come up with Charles's name, Shirley explained that Charles's had once held the title to the land, they scrambled and found that several pages had been ripped from the records and destroyed.

(Account from letter written 28 may 1974 to Craig McCombs by Ted Wassmer)

Now, I wish I could give you alot of information but I can only remember bits here and there from my mother. I could kick myself for not paying more attention when she related her trip. But as I understand it. Her mother and Father left Independence, Missouri with eight children in a covered wagon for Utah. Date? I forgot. They drove across the plains and had many frightening experiences. One was they came across an abandoned log cabin and decided to sleep in it over night. My mother related in the night they were awakened by horses running. They didn't know whether it was Indians or what, anyway they were scared and spent a sleepless ight. They went on and finally camped by the Colorado river in Pueblo, Colorado to wash and clean up after days without much water. As there was no water to drink they drank the river water and many of them came down with Typhoid fever. They really had a rough time of it- no doctors, no medicine, no food to speak of but they had faith and prayed a lot for a safe journey to Zion. Their hair all fell out from the fever as most of them were bald whenthey reached Salt Lake including your great-grandmother.