Samuel Echols
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Wives:

(1) Mary Minerva Vincent
(2) Arminta Missouri Lee (See Lee Family History)
(3) Letha Bell Kight

Samuel Echols was born January 13, 1856 in Talapoosa County, Alabama, the son of Lewis Barton Echols and Emily Jane Weems Echols. I am the oldest child of twelve, eight boys and four girls.

In 1860 my father moved to Shelby County, Alabama, where we lived in time of war between the North and South. My father was in the war. After the war we moved back to Talapoosa County, Alabama and lived there one year. We then moved to Polk County, Georgia, and settled on a tract of land in the woods, and opened a farm.

In my childhood days my parents were very poor, as was the case with a great many people after the war. Therefore, I had little chance to go to school and never went but about eight months. I had to work very hard to help my father pay for his land and make a living f or the family. I helped my father get out timber and make a good gin house and a good dwelling house, stables and other buildings. We dug several wells on the farm. Finally we got well fixed to live and lived here about fifteen years. Most of the children were about grown.

October 1879, my brother, James Virdell, died with typhoid fever.

November 31, 1879, Mary Minerva Vincent and I were married. I had bought forty acres of land and I built us a nice little house to live in. January 3, 1881 we had another baby born to us and named him John Clayton.

About this time my wife and I decided to sell out and move to the state of Texas. So I sold our home. Then her people got her to separate from me, and succeeded in getting her not to go with me, so I did not go to Texas in the summer of 1881.

There were several Elders holding meetings in our neighborhood and were making several converts. My father went and heard Matthias F. Cowley preach. After that his house was a home for the Elders, and we all became very much interested in the gospel. One August 31, 1881, my father, mother, myself, sister Josephine, brothers John, Benjamin, Martin B, and sister Amanda were all baptized and confirmed members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints by William J. Packer and John W. Taylor.

About November 1, 1881 my wife came back to me, and on December 21, 1881, she was baptized by William J. Packer and confirmed by John W. Taylor, and on the same day I was ordained a priest by Elder Walter Scott. Our baby, John Clayton, was blessed the same day by Elder Scott. I lived with my father and our house was a home and headquarters for the Elders. They held many meetings at our house and it stirred up the people that were opposed to the truth and they began to lay out threats against the Elders. I and my father and my brothers armed ourselves with new shotguns and revolvers to protect the Elders against the mobs, but we did not have any trouble for the mobs never attacked us.

Sometime in the fall of 1881 Elder John W. Taylor was transferred to the Kentucky Conference. His life had been threatened in Haralson County where he had been laboring, but I went with him down there and got his valise and clothes. Elder Taylor gave me his watch before he left and I carried it for more than twenty-five years.

In the fall of this year, 1881, my father sold out his home to his brother, Wellborn Echols. About March the 20^th, 1882, my wife went to visit her people about three miles away, and two days later my father and family with a number of other Latter-day Saints started for Colorado. My wife and I had arranged to go also, but when I went by after her she would not go with me, so I left her and the baby and went on my way. On March 27, 1882 we arrived in Manassa, Colorado. President John Morgan went with the company from Chattanooga, Tennessee. I lived with my parents and helped them get a home built in Manassa.

In the fall of 1882 I received a call from President John Taylor to go on a mission to the Southern States with a number of other Elders. On the 13^th of January 1883, I was ordained an Elder and set apart for my mission by Silas S. Smith. On the 16^th of January I started for Chattanooga, Tennessee. I traveled with Elder John E. Metcaff for a short time, then, a new Elder, William H. Kerby, came to travel. We labored together for about three months, then Elder William F. Rigby, another new Elder was sent to labor with me. We labored together for about nine months. He was released on account of a lame ankle and he returned home. I baptized two while on my mission. I was honorably released and returned home on March 17, 1884.

In the fall of 1884 I went to General Conference in Salt Lake City and then went to Logan and on October 16, 1884, I was married in the Logan Temple to Arminta Missouri Lee by Moses Thatcher. (According to his diary, Samuel went to see his child in Georgia, but his wife did not want to see him at all. He brought, Arminta M. Lee, home with him when he came from his mission, she was from Georgia)

We then returned home and I labored as a Ward Teacher in the Manassa Ward of the San Luis Stake of Zion and as a home missionary and Sunday School Teacher. On December 17, 1887, we had a baby boy born to us, Samuel Benjamin. On August 11, 1889, Joseph Alma was born, and on June 24, 1891, Orson Lewis was born, and on June 7, 1893, Mary Arminta was born. I had a hard time trying to make a living and suffered much from cold and exposure. I have labored to settle troubles and have done a good deal to help the widows and orphans, as I was a member of the City Council and Town Treasurer. My wife suffered a great deal from rheumatism and I was afflicted wit it some, so we concluded to go to Arizona.

On June 6, 1896 we started and arrived on the Gila River on July 14, 1896 in Graham County, four miles above Duncan. Brother Benjamin and others had started a new canal and there were a few families starting a new settlement, so I bought a 50-acre

Tract of land from H. C. Day and began to make a living.

There was a branch of the Church organized March 21, 1897. William D. Johnson, Counselor to President Layton of the St. Joseph Stake of Zion and I were appointed presiding Elders over the Branch which was named the Franklin Branch at a Stake Conference the last of January 1898. The whole of St. Joseph stake was disorganized and then re-organized by Apostle John Henry Smith, and John W. Taylor. Andrew Kimball was sustained as President of the St. Joseph Stake of Zion. After conference the Apostles came up and organized the Franklin Ward and put me in Bishop on the third day of January 1898. I was Bishop nearly three years. I was then released on account of my health. I then moved to Thathcher Ward, where I was appointed Superintendent of Religion Class and labored as a Ward Teacher. On October 8, 1899, we had another boy baby and named him Robert Lee and on May 19, 1903, we had another little boy born and named him James Edward, but he did not stay with us long. He died August 19, 1903.

Written by Samuel Echols. (After his wife Arminta Lee died, he married Letha Belle Kight, and had a son named DeWayne Echols)

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Many terrible battles of the civil war were fought on Georgia soil and the scars were still seen and to be felt by Arminta Lee. She was a cousin of General Robert E. Lee and knew the stories of war and the loss of loved ones and plantations and possessions. She saw where General Sherman burned the wheat fields in his march to the sea. She knew the love of the Lees for their slaves, not as workers treated badly but as individuals treated with love and respect, people with hearts and feelings and southern pride. The Lee’s had freed their slaves and gave them land before the civil war began. Arminta was raised by "Nigger Mammy" as she called her, and it was a term of endearment and love not one of disrespect. Arminta loved her dearly and after she moved to Arizona and came back to visit it was a visit of love and she cherished every precious moment they could spend together. (I saw the little yellow and white cottage the Lee’s had built for "Mammy" and it is close to the graveyard where she is buried.)

Arminta’s home was a two-story brick and wood house with a little stream of water running at the back. She grew up on a diet of sweet potoatoes, turnip greens, black-eyed peas, corn bread, fried chicken, hominy-grits and fresh fruit. She taught her own children to appreciate all of these, her favorite foods.

Her school days were full of excitement and joy as she attended the little country school with cousins and friends. Saturday afternoon and Sunday were holidays and a time for going to the store and town. Activities held by the church filled a great part of her life. They had Sunday School Sponsored picnics and barbecues and other parties. Arminta loved her southland and the gaiety of the southern people. Southern hospitality was indeed a part of their life and many precious hours were spent with Lee and Rogers cousins.

Arminta was tall and slender with long brown, natural curly hair. She was graceful and lovely and never lacked for beaus from among those southern gentlemen.

Samuel Echols was called on a mission to Georgia from Colorado; he was a native of Georgia, but when his father and mother joined the Church there was so much opposition that his family moved west to Colorado. While on this mission he met Arminta Lee and they fell in love with each other, and he persuaded her to leave her family and friends, to return with him to Colorado and become his wife—this was in the year 1884. They traveled home by way of Logan, Utah and were married in the temple there by Moses Thatcher. From there they went to Manasa, Colorado where Samuel’s parents lived.

They established a home in Manasa, where their three oldest boys and their daughter was born. While living there, Samuel and Arminta both got rheumatism and felt bad which gave them an incentive to move to a warmer climate. On June 6, 1896 they loaded all of their belongings into two wagons and started for Arizona. Samuel drove one wagon and Arminta drove the other one. On July 14 they arrived about three or four miles above Duncan, Arizona and decided to settle on the banks of the Gila River.

They lived in a log hut with the cracks stopped up with mud for some time. Samuel bought fifty acres of land from Mr. H. E. Day and there they made a dugout in the ground and lived in it for several years. What a hard life for Arminta, plucked away from the heart of the south to the barren lands of Arizona.

While living in this little town of Franklin a branch of the Church was organized in 1897 and on March 21, 1898 it was made a Ward, with Samuel as the first bishop of the Ward. The Franklin Ward Relief Society was organized with Elizabeth A. Gale as president and Arminta as her first counselor. She was set apart by Andrew Kimball, father of Spencer Kimball, who later became the President of the Church.

Two more sons were born to Samuel and Arminta during the four years they lived there, the youngest one living only one year. It was here that Arminta became quite ill and Samuel decided to move his little family to Thatcher, Arizona. Their first home was on a lot one block south of Andrew Kimball’s.

When Bob and Ben were small boys, Arminta took them with her on the train for a visit back to her beloved home in the south. On the way she lost the train tickets but Southern Pacific Railroad let her go on and issued her new ones. Bob says when they arrived in Georgia it was a severe shock to him to see his mother run up to "Nigger Mammy," embrace her and give her a big kiss right on the mouth. When he asked his mother about it, she said she knew her better and loved her as much as her own mother. Her cousin, Bessie Hill, said she really did enjoy that trip home and was so happy to be with all of her relatives, friends and chums from schools and visit childhood places. Since Arminta was raised by "Niger Mammy" that probably accounts for all the superstitions and unusual stories. My father would never let me whistle because he said, "A whistling girl and a crowing hen always comes to some bad end."

My father and his brother used to tell us children the stories their mother told them; one of the stories was about a locust that followed them as they were driving down the road in a wagon on the way home. With them in the wagon was a friend. And the locust would fly on one side of the road and just buzz and buzz, then it would fly to the other side and buzz and buzz. This kept up for several miles until they reached home and they got out and went in the living room and the locust came in too, and it flew from corner to corner and they could not seem to get rid of it. Soon the other man, the friend that rode home with them decided to leave and when he opened the door to leave, the locust left with him and that was the end of the locust and they were happy to be rid of it.

Another time they were going down the road in their wagon again, also on their way home, and a barrel started to roll down the road behind them. If they made the horses go faster—the barrel would go faster. If they slowed down the barrel slowed down, always the same distance behind them. They were all very frightened with the situation and did not know what to do. Finally they came to a fork in the road and they took one way and the barrel rolled the other way.

Arminta and Samuel’s daughter was named Mary Arminta and she had a bosom friend named Eva Ison; there was only three houses between them, and only three months differences in their ages, and in 1909 or 1910, she started dating Ben, their son, (Mary Arminta’s brother). Ben and Eva got married in December 1911. Mary Arminta was married a month previous, to Robert Wilford Ferrin, but due to complications with childbirth she died in less than a year. Grandmother had lost her one and only daughter.

Eva said her mother-in-law was tall and slender but got around very poorly. Her children attended school in Thatcher, Arizona and lived a normal life, however with each passing day this mother became worse. She had a disease called dropsy, a form of disease where too much water remains in the body. Eva said Arminta sat a lot and would tell others what to do from her chair, and she would get a little cross if they did not obey her.

In 1912 Samuel and Arminta moved to Pima, where they had a two-story red brick home on Main Street. Years later, my father Alma, tore this house down and I helped stack the bricks. Years later my brother, Roger used those bricks for his first house after he was married.

Ben and Eva lived in Safford, where they had two little boys born into their family. Samuel and Arminta would go to Safford to do extra shopping because they had more stores than Pima and afforded them a better choice of things to buy. The only way to travel was by horse and buggy and it would take them a big part of the day to get there—about 10 miles. They would always tell Eva when they were coming and it was up to her to have dinner ready for them, as they always arrived at dinner-time. Eva resented this a little because it happened so often. Roy, one of Eva’s little boys, remembers a pet chicken they had while living there. It was a White Leghorn and would hang around the back door just like a little puppy dog, waiting for the scraps. Roy played with that chicken because it was so easy to catch. One time they were not at home when Grandpa and Grandma Echols came to visit and they didn’t want to wait for Eva to get home to fix dinner, so they decided to have a chicken dinner. When Eva came home this was a little upsetting to her, because that pet chicken was on the stove cooking.

Alma, one of Arminta’s and Samuel’s sons went on a mission for the Church to the Southern States in 1911. His grandmother and grandfather Lee lived in Dallas, Georgia, and they had read the Book of Mormon left them by their son-in-law thirty years previous. During the week Alma and his companion worked in the country and held meetings at their house on Sundays. It wasn’t long until Arminta’s father wanted to be baptized, but her mother was not quite sure. Anyway, Alma dammed up the little creek running in back of their house and waited a week for it to get full enough to baptize him. Then when the time came his grandmother was ready too. His grandfather was 91 years old and his grandmother was 85. This was a happy day for Alma and also for his mother, to see her parents come into the Church. (I visited this house, part of which is still in use. The little creek is still running and I saw where my father had dammed up the water.)

Another evening, Alma and his companion stopped at a little country store, and a gentleman asked if they were Mormon Missionaries. Alma replied, "Yes we are."

The gentlemen then said, "Years ago two Mormon Missionaries were here and one of them carried my sweetheart home with him."

He told Alma her name to which he replied, "She is my mother!"

The gentlemen took Alma and his companion home with him to stay the night, and father said they were given a big meal and treated "royally."

In a few years the sons were all married and living in their own homes. Joseph Alma married Frances Delilah Barney. Ben of course was married to Eva Ison. Orson married Mattie Jane Lewis. Robert Lee married Venla Birdno. They all lived in the valley but most holidays were spent up to Ben’s in Safford. One time they were together and were planning a Thanksgiving dinner and deciding who would fix what food. Grandma spoke up and said, "I want Eva to make the dressing, I like her dressing better than anybody’s."

This did not go very well with one daughter-in-law, Mattie, who said, "I can make dressing just as good as she does and I’ll show you." Eva quickly retorted, "I will make the dressing since dinner will be at my house."

By this time Arminta was so upset at it all that she refused to come to the table and eat; she ate her food as she sat in her rocking chair. She could not go to Church, because she couldn’t walk so far, but she did enjoy walking across the street to Grandma Worden’s. But mostly she would sit in her chair and just rock and rock. Bob helped with the washing and Samuel did all the cooking. Venla said she was always sweet and patient, never complaining. And in later years, she said she thought that Arminta had sugar diabetes as did her son, Bob, as he became older.

This is what her grandson, Ethan, wrote of her in his journal: "I have always had a faint recollection of my grandmother. She died just before I reached four years of age. Her name was Arminta Missouri Lee. My sister was named after her. I can remember playing of the floor of a room in my grandfather’s house with another child, probably my brother. This room connected the main part of his two story home with another part, which had been built on later. I can remember a beautiful lady dressed in a beautiful white dress coming in the door on one side of the room, picking up something, and going out the door on the other side of the room. The dress impressed me so much because it was long and came within a few inches of me when she passed by. Whether true or not this has always impressed me as being my grandmother and is the only recollection I have of her. To me she has always seemed a very special person."

And special she was to those who knew and loved her. And what a glorious reunion awaited her on the other side with her two children and loved ones as she departed this life in the year 1919---this beautiful Belle of the South!

Compiled and written by her granddaughter, Arminta Echols Smith. I am proud to have her name and I am looking forward to the day when I can meet her.

She married Samuel Echols in the Logan Temple, Logan, Utah. They settled in Manassa, Colorado after their marriage.

The weather was very cold there, so father and mother decided to come to Arizona. They fitted up two wagons with all their belongings and started for Arizona in the fall of 1896. Father drove one wagon and mother the other. I, Alma was four years old.

We were three weeks on the road. I remember stopping and picking berries. I rode with mother most of the way. I found myself picking berries all by myself, everyone had gone and it was quiet. I ran as fast as I could and found the road and went the wrong way, and after I discovered that I had to turn and run fast the other way. I shall never forget how I felt or how tired I was when I finally caught up with them.

I remember in Silver City, New Mexico, after father crossed the railroad tracks, he looked back and saw the train coming. He stopped and ran back and backed mother’s wagon off the railroad track before the train arrived.

Mother was very patient. She never scolded or whipped any of us boys. I never did see her get angry. She was a gentle and kind person.

Home was always pleasant and a happy place to be. You would hardly know she was there. She was a modest Southern Housekeeper.

Her love was wonderful; she was generous and loved to help people in trouble. Her religion always came first and she worked in the Church as Relief Society President and a Relief Society teacher.

In later life she got the dropsy but I never heard her complain, there is not much you can remember bad about such a wonderful person. If I can go where she is I will be HAPPY!

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