Wilford Albert Stevenson and Sarah Adalaide Johnson

Alicia Burk - Linda Flake - Dolores Jordan - Gladys Stevenson - Wilford Stevenson and Sarah Johnson

Wilford (1871-1946) remembers as a little pioneer boy hearing the meadowlarks sing. He thought they were singing, “I see lazy WILford.” His parents told him that because they didn’t want him to be lazy! He didn’t like to work, but he grew up to be a hard worker.

As a little boy, Wilford lived on a 50-acre-farm but didn’t like to work on the farm because they had to make their own crude farm tools and did much work by hand. They had wooden rakes rather than metal rakes (Wilford later gave a wooden rake to a Utah museum). Wilford and his brothers grew up in the times of the outlaw Jesse James. The brothers loved to play Jesse James and became quite rough in acting out Jesse James. Wilford was very musical and could play almost anything--violin, flute, piano, almost anything anyone gave him to play. The family had a little band of their own and played for the dances. Wilford and his brother later played flute and piano for dances, too. Wilford was in the first primary, organized by Aurelia Spencer Rogers, and had a little membership card. On a famous painting of the first primary, Wilford is one of the little boys sitting on the bench. 

Wilford had an eighth-grade education and was considered very educated. In those days, people were lucky to receive a third or fourth-grade education. So people came to Wilford from all over town to ask for his help in figuring out things and doing things they weren’t educated to do. While travelling to another part of Utah, Wilford stayed in a boarding house. A girl named was working in the boarding house; she and Wilford got married. They took out a dry farm (or homestead) for a few years. One terrible winter, Wilford had to go tend to the cows and horses. As he walked in the blizzard, he could not see to find his way home and wandered around and around. Luckily, his wife stood on the porch with a lantern held high, and he eventually spotted the light and found his way home. The next day when he went to , he saw his footprints in the snow and noticed that they went within one foot of a deep well. If he’d fallen in he could have been killed. “So the Lord was with him to guide him back to the house safely.” He had a big dog on that farm and he loved the dog very much. One day, Wilford’s two-year-old son escaped from the house and ran out among the horses. As the dog followed the boy, he ran in circles around the boy, while barking and barking to keep the horses from trampling the little boy. The dog had saved the boy’s life until his mother and father discovered he was missing and came to find him. 

Life on the farm was hard; if it rained they had a good crop, if it didn’t rain they had a poor harvest. Another of Wilford’s sons had long curly hair down to his shoulders. His mother didn’t have any little girls, so she let her son have long hair and wouldn’t let anyone cut it. One day while mother was at Relief Society, Wilford got out the scissors and gave his son a boy haircut. Mother cried when she saw the haircut! Later, the family was drinking from their well which had typhoid germs. Mother had just recovered from typhoid when Wilford became very sick with the typhoid. Mother was too weak to care for him, so she had a spiritualist nurse come. During the heavy snows, someone would knock at the door but when Mother opened the door, no one was there. There weren’t even any footprints there. The nurse said not to answer the door; it was spirits coming to see her, she said. Mother was frightened and sent the nurse away. After the nurse was gone, Wilford was so enraged that he couldn’t be held down or calmed. So Mother let the woman come back, and as soon as she came in, Wilford calmed down and was quiet.

--by his daughter Gladys

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Sarah Adelaide Johnson (wife of Wilford Albert Stevenson) 1873-1930

 Sarah (2nd row, far left) with her mother Mary (2nd row, 3rd from left) and siblings

Sarah / Sarah with Ruth