Among last living children of Pioneers
E-mail story
It's easy. Send a link to the story you were just reading to a friend. Just fill out the form on this page and we'll send it along.
Your name and e-mail address are transmitted to the recipient. Otherwise, it is considered private information; see Privacy policy.
PROVO, Utah — There aren't many children of original Mormon pioneers left to tell their life's story. Joseph Smith Jacobs' begins with the birth of his father, an infant pioneer.
On a rainy Sunday in March 1846, only five minutes after crossing the Chariton River in Iowa, Zina Diantha Huntington Jacobs gave birth to a son in her wagon. She chose as his middle name Chariton, after the location where he was born.
Carried on to the Salt Lake Valley, where he arrived in 1848, Henry Chariton Jacobs was raised in President Brigham Young's household. He served as a patriarch in the Church and remained a stalwart member all his life.
After the death of his first wife, Susie Stringham Jacobs, he married Emma Rigby.
In his 63rd year, two months after being set apart as bishop of the Ogden Fifth Ward by Elder David O. McKay, his wife Emma gave birth to Joseph Smith Jacobs, Chariton's 15th and last child, on Feb. 25, 1909.
On a recent weekend in mid-February, Joseph Smith Jacobs' two daughters and two sons joined his wife, Leone, to commemorate his 97th birthday. Within the span of this father-to-son generation lies the better part of the 175-year history of the Church.
Commonly known as Smith all his life, Brother Jacobs was raised in a home frequented by the leading men of the Church and community. It was his father's belief that naming children after prominent people aided them in their development. His father would linger after conferences for his children to shake hands with the leaders of the Church, believing that such experiences would leave an impression of goodness on their minds.
His father knew from experience the value of meeting great people, having been reared in the home of Brigham Young where he was taught firsthand the virtues of life.
"I've kept very busy," Brother Jacobs said. He maintained a work ethic instituted by his father that required him to perform the daily farm chores of feeding the chickens, gathering the eggs, feeding the cows and horses, cleaning the barn, irrigating the garden, picking fruit, harvesting vegetables and milking cows.
Brother Jacobs grew up in Ogden, Utah, where he became an assistant cheerleader and athletic manager at Weber Junior College. In October 1930, he left to serve in the French-Belgium Mission.
Years later, a granddaughter, Dalene Rex, would serve in the Herstal Branch in Belgium, which he helped organize during his mission.
By age 23, he was sporting a moustache, that, except for brief bouts over the years, has continued to his 97th birthday. When, as a young man, he went to California to work as an extra in the shooting of "Mutiny on the Bounty," some jokingly said his moustache gave him a Clark Gable appeal.
"I was just an indistinguishable shipmate," he countered.
Brother Jacobs was a 30-year-old school teacher when he met and married Leone Perry from Preston, Idaho. He worked three jobs during World War II, including as custodian, riding his bicycle five miles to the school where he taught.
For more than 40 years, they made their home in California, where he worked as an educator.
Despite his active life, which included tennis matches every Saturday until his mid-80s, doctors said he wouldn't live through the summer when diagnosed with congestive heart failure two years ago.
Aided by a cane and a tank of oxygen, he maintains a lively step at the care center in Provo, Utah, where he and his wife moved in January.
"As we gathered last week for his birthday celebration," said his daughter, Janet Rex, "we asked the family what his life meant to us."
A common consensus among the more than 100 in his posterity was that they were blessed in life because of his ability to work, his sense of humor, his love of youth which led him into education and spilled over into a good family life, his encouragement for excellence and his love of education and its importance in leading a quality life.
Brother Jacobs was only 6 years old when his father Chariton died at age 69. Still, his impression on his young son was enough fuel to direct him for life.
E-mail to: shaun@desnews.com
