John Robert Dyer and Barsheba Tharpe (Part 6)

Valley of the Terrapins, Slow and Steady Wins the Race

adapted from a manuscript by Nancy Mildred Beals DeWitt

(Part 6)

John James Dyer came next in 1851. He first married Elizabeth Ferroba Spears, but then they separated and he brought his little boy James Wesley to live with my Grandmother Elizabeth Frances Beals when he was only 3 months old. Later John James married Mary Jane Luster and had one little boy David Robert born in Tennessee. They joined the LDS church and went to Colorado in March of 1889 with the other folks. They had four more children in the next six years. A little girl, Mary, was born just six months after they got there. They had twin girls, Flaura and Laura two years later and a little boy John Leland born in 1894.

Just the next year, Uncle John James passed away leaving his young wife in a new country with five young children and a teen aged step son. Aunt Mary Jane's parents, David Luster and Emmaline Demaris Bowyer Luster, took their whole family with them to Colorado too. Mary Jane's mother died just before Mary Jane's last baby was born in 1894.

Uncle John James died the next year in 1899 and her brother Pat Luster's wife who was Barsheba Tate, who was Aunt Polly's daughter, died leaving a family of young children too. So that makes six grownup deaths in the little band that came from Tennessee in just a few years.

When my father, Charles Mitchell Beals, told me about Uncle John James death he said, "I remember my Uncle John James was real sick and he had terrible pains in his head and in his chest. I had to take a job out of town, so I went and him good-bye. I got on my horse and went on to work, but in a few nights I had a terrible dream and dreamed that Uncle John James had passed away and that they had to bury him without me being there because they didn't know for sure where I was or didn't have anyone to send after me on horseback. I felt so bad that I quit my job and went home. Sure enough that is what had happened. I felt so bad just like I did in my dreams. He had died of pneumonia." I have often wondered about the young children of John James.

Mary married and I met her in Colorado in 1946. She was a pretty, attractive woman. She died the next year in 1947.

Laura, I don't know anything about except she died in 1926.

Flaura was married and lived in Miami, Arizona in 1922. When Uncle Henley Beals died, Aunt Mildred stayed all night with here there. Flaura died in 1942.

John Robert Dyer and Barsheba Tharpe (Part 5)

Valley of the Terrapins, Slow and Steady Wins the Race

adapted from a manuscript by Nancy Mildred Beals DeWitt

(Part 5)

Charles McKinney Dyer was born to John Robert and Barsheba in 1849. He married Jerusha Jones 24 December, 1872.

When Aunt Jerusha, or Aunt Sis as everyone called her, was about twelve years old, she went to stay all night with a friend. The confederate soldiers in the civil war came through and hanged her friend's mother and her friend. They started to hang her, but someone said, "Oh! she doesn't belong here, let her go." She ran and hid until the soldiers left. She came out of hiding and cut down her friend and her mother and saved their lives.

Uncle Charlie and Aunt Sis only had one child. They named her Malissa Cordelia. She was nicknamed Cordie. Aunt Cordie told her children about the negro mammy they used to have in Tennessee. She was real good and they thought a lot of her. When they would sit down at the table, they would ask her to come and eat with them. She would say, "Oh, no, no you wouldn't like this old black face sitting with you white folks. No, I will eat here in the kitchen." And she always did.

Cordie also told her children about when she had typhoid fever. She was about 14 or 15 years old there in Tennessee. She had been awfully sick but was getting better. She was still quite weak and shaky. She said her father had a garden and had some beautiful tomatoes. One day she saw her mother had picked a big basket full of tomatoes and was taking them to the store house. She asked if she could have some. Her mother answered, "Heavens no! They would kill you."

Cordie said they looked so good and she was so hungry, that later she slipped with a salt shaker and went down to the store house. She ate three or four big tomatoes. Just as she was finishing the last one, her mother walked up. She said, "Oh! You will surely die! What have you done?" Aunt Cordie said that she never felt so good in all her life, with her stomach full of tomatoes. They never hurt her. In fact, she said that was what made her well.

Uncle Charlie and Aunt Jerusha and Cordie left Tennessee with the rest of the folks in March of 1889 on the train. When the railroad forked at St. Louis, they came on to Pima, Arizona. Uncle Charlie had a store there. They never had any more children but Cordie grew up and married Squire Enoch Reynolds. They raised a big wonderful family. There is only one son left, Lincoln Reynolds. Their other children were Alfred Rufus and Annie, Esther and Ruth.

They also have a great posterity of Grandchildren. Some of them are Dr. Earl and Sandra Bleak who just returned from Tarpine Valley, Tennessee. They visited Ira and Ernestine Luster who were cordial as ever with fried chicken and all of the trimmings.

John Robert Dyer and Barsheba Tharpe (Part 4)

Valley of the Terrapins, Slow and Steady Wins the Race

adapted from a manuscript by Nancy Mildred Beals DeWitt

(Part 4)

After my grandmother Elizabeth Beals had liven in Pima for a few years, she wrote to her nephew Billy in Tennessee, and asked him to make her a hickory stick walking cane. She gave explicit directions to Billy. He was to cut a green hickory stick, tie it and keep it covered with ashes for one year. Months later when he sent the finished cane it had a piece break off the top of it. Grandma said, "Well, if he had followed my directions, it would never have done that." She was quite perturbed.

I don't know what happened to the oldest son John R.

In 1841 a boy child was born and named Lewis J. perhaps after Barsheba Dyer's father. He never married. I think he stayed at home there with Great Grandma and Grandpa and Aunt Eliza. He served in the Civil War and fought with the rebels from the south. I don't have his death date, but he is buried in the Dyer graveyard upon the little hill above Tarpine Valley.

Louisa Jane, whom they called Aunt Eliza, was born in 1844. She never married either, but she helped take care of Great Grandpa and Grandma and she helped do the work. She helped with the washing, the cleaning, the cooking and the weaving. (She sounds so precious to me.) She went with Great Grandmother Barsheba on the long cold train ride to Sanford, Colorado 7 March 1889. She lived 8 years after she got there. She had what they called dropsy and died on 21 October 1897, just before my Grandfather Beals moved his family to Arizona. Aunt Eliza is buried in Colorado there by Great Grandmother Dyer.

The eighth child was my Grandmother, Elizabeth Frances Dyer. She married John Simpson Bales 29 Nov 1866. (This couple are the great grandparents of Donald Arlo Vance,) They had a family of eleven children. They owned this farm next to Elizabeth's family in Terrapin Valley. They had two little baby boys die there.

Then the most wonderful thing happened. Two missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints came and brought with them the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This wonderful messaged changed their whole lives. My Grandfather John Simpson Bales was the first convert in that vicinity. Soon, they sold their farm and home and all of their possessions except what they could take on the train and moved to Sanford, Colorado. All their children went with them.

Their oldest son Robert and his wife Jewell Luster and their two little girls, Cora and Dora, went to Arizona. Grandma and Grandpa Beals lived in Colorado eight years before coming on to Arizona in a covered wagon in 1897.

They were only in Pima, Arizona seven years when Grandpa Beals passed away in July 1904. Grandma lived in the little lumber house grandpa build for her and the family. She passed away in December, 1928. She is buried in the Pima Cemetery by Grandpa. He was one of the sweetest kindest men that ever lived.

John Robert Dyer and Barsheba Tharpe (Part 3)

Valley of the Terrapins, Slow and Steady Wins the Race

adapted from a manuscript by Nancy Mildred Beals DeWitt

(Part 3)

Polly and Caswell Tate's daughter "Toad" married Pat Luster in 1879. They moved to Colorado and had a young family. They had six children born in Tennessee and five more born in Colorado. She had eleven children in fifteen years and four of them died as infants. Her husband Pat came to Pima, Arizona later and married again. The children grew up there in the valley. They were : Laura Maud Luster who married Robert Edge Reed, Ira Carpenter Luster who married Bertha Emmaline Kirby, Mary Emaline Luster who married Benjamin Russell, Malissa Jane Luster who married John Reynolds, Samuel LeRoy Houston Luster who did not marry, Bathsheba Luster who married Charles Boyle, Charles Walter Luster who married Chloe Curtis. These children grew up to be fine outstanding citizens and raised good families. A lot of their descendants are leaders in our communities and still live in Pima, Arizona and around the state.

I used to ask my father "How is it we are related to the Lusters?" and I never really understood. In writing this history I found that my grandmother Elizabeth Beals' sister, Mary or Aunt Polly married William Luster. My Grandmother Beals' brother John James married Mary Jane Luster then aunt Mary Barsheba Tate and her sister, Jewell Luster, married her husband's nephew, Uncle Robert, Bob Beals. The Luster and Dyer descendants are "truly related" wouldn't you say? Would someone please tell me what relation uncle William Luster is to these later Lusters?

In 1839, Barsheba and John Robert had another little boy. He was given the name of Richard Fain. They called him Rich. He married Hila Couch and they had three children, John R in 1860, William in 1868 and Isabell in 1872. Great uncle Rich served in the Civil war with the North. He brought his family to Arizona in the early 1900's but went back to Tennesse because they didn't like it out here. Isabel married Bud Jeffers but were never blessed with any children. Billy never married. In 1946 we visited them and they lived not far from Tarpine Valley but we had to swim or take a ferry boat to get across the river and walk a few miles. They lived in a little log cabin down by the river. That is where they passed away.

Elizabeth Frances Dyer and John Simpson Beals

On 29 Nov, 1866 Elizabeth Frances Dyer married John Simpson Bales (Beals) in Hawkins County, Tennessee. They had a family of eleven children: James Robert, Mary Barsheba, Caswell Alxander, William Thomas, Charles Mitchell, Joseph Jashua, Sarah Martha, Hila Ella, Richard Francis, Eliza Frances Bevan, and John Luis Hendley Beals.

They owned the farm next to Elizabeth's family in Terrapin Valley. They had two little baby boys, Caswell Alexander and Joseph Joshua, die there. Then the most wonderful thing happened. Two missionaries from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints came and brought with them the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This wonderful message changed their whole lives. Our third great grandfather, John Simpson Bales was the first convert in that vicinity.

Soon, they sold their farm and home and all of their possessions except what they could take on the train and moved to Sanford, Conejos County, Colorado. All of their children went with them. Their oldest son, Robert, and his wife, Jewell Luster, went on to Arizona. Great Great Grandma and and Grandpa Beals lived in Colorado for eight years before moving on to Pima, Arizona.

They were in Pima for only seven years when Grandpa Beals passed away in July 1904. Grandma lived in the little lumber house build for her by her husband until she passed away in December, 1928. She is buried in the Pima Cemetery by Grandpa. According to Nancy Mildred Beals DeWitt, he was the sweetest kindest man that ever lived.

Uncle Gus

Uncle Gus, as my father called him, was an interesting, rather unpredictable person, most likely due to war injuries, it couldn't have been heredity! One time he took a scythe and cut off the head of one of the fine blooded bulls that belonged to his father, perhaps in anger. (In 1946, when we were trying to find the grave yard where many of the family were buried, a man we ask directions of said, "Die you know old Gus Dyer?" When my father said, "Yes, he was my uncle", the man said, "Well, don't step on his grave or he'll raise up and beat the hell out of you!!) Uncle Gus had a bald spot on the back of his head which was caused by a strange accident. It's said that he drank too much moonshine one night and Aunt Lucinda had to go after him. She pulled him up on a sled and tied his feet to the single tree. When she got home, she found that his head had slipped off the back of the sled and dragged on the ground, wearing all the hair and hide off the spot. It never grew back.

Gus was a farmer in what is now called the Tarpine Valley, but which was originally called the Valley of the Terrapins. Augustus died the 8th of Sept. 1907 and is buried in the Dyer graveyard on a little hill overlooking the valley.

Taken from a typewritten manuscript written by Nancy Mildred Beals DeWitt.

Introducing the Beals Family

This is a picture of my Great Grandfather, William Thomas Beals. He was married Josie Caroline Hicks in 9 Dec 1893. They were married for a short period of time. They had two children, Rosie Verdeame Beals and Arthur Beals who died as a child. William Thomas Beals and Josie Caroline Hicks were divorced and William went on to marry at least two other times. I have a record of a marriage to Abbie Ellen Patterson in 1898 and to Eddie Jane Viars in 1913.

I have a Doctrine and Covenants that Great Grandpa Beals gave to his daughter, Rosey Verdeame Vance on her 35th birthday.

This is my Great, great grandfather, John Simpson Beals who was born 29 Oct 1844 in Loudon, Monroe, Tennessee and who died 19 Jul 1904 in Pima, Graham, Arizona. He brought his family west to Colorado and after a couple of years, they moved on to Pima, Arizona. He died in Pima in 1904.

His wife, Elizabeth Frances Dyer was born 31 January 1847 in Rodgersville, Hawkins, Tennessee. She died in Pima, Arizona in December of 1928.

I have some histories I would like to share if you are interested, but they are long and I will have to do the sharing in installments.