Essentials
Born: 25 April 1866; Fairview, Sanpete County, Utah
Daughter of: David Walker SANDERS and Sarah Jane VANCE
Married: Hyrum NELSON, 15 October 1885; St. George, Washington County, Utah
Died: 6 August 1949; Phoenix, Maricopa County, Arizona

Page contents
One-minute history

BY DARYL JAMES
FROM 'JAMES/HATCH ONE MINUTE HISTORIES' (1994)
     Martha Frances Sanders was born April 25, 1866, to David Walker Sanders and Sarah Jane Vance at Fairview, Sanpete County, Utah. She was the third of four children. Her parents had joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Illinois and moved west with the Church to Utah.
     Martha's younger sister, Amanda, died as a child in 1869. Then in 1873 Martha's mother died. Both of these events happened at Fairview before Martha's eighth birthday. Martha's father remarried in 1878 when Martha was 12.
     After this marriage Martha moved to Tonto Basin, Ariz., with her sister, Sarah Jane, and her sister's husband, Aaron Elijah Cheney. Martha was living here in March 1885 when she met Hyrum Nelson, a young man visiting from Pine, Ariz.
     The two courted about seven months and then were married Oct. 15, 1885, in the St. George Temple in Utah. The couple traveled to St. George "by team in company of others," said their daughter Eunice Nelson Curtis.
     Martha was 19 at the time of the marriage and Hyrum was 22.
     The couple's first child, Hyrum Vance, was born in Tonto Basin. When he was six weeks old in February 1887, the family left with Hyrum's parents and siblings to Mexico. Many of the Mormons who moved to Mexico at this time were polygamists seeking refuge from the law, but the Nelsons were not polygamists. They came to Mexico because the Mexican government had issued grants of land to the Mormons for colonization.
     The company traveled in wagons toward the well-timbered Sierra Madre Mountains in Chihuahua, Mexico. Building roads as they went was a slow process, but the Nelsons continued as far as Cave Valley. This was a settlement named for its many cliff dwellings.
     Hyrum went to work in Cave Valley as a logger and carpenter. Also, with the help of Martha and his boys, Hyrum tanned and made deer hides into buckskin and sold them to be made into gloves, gauntlets and clothing.
     In 1892 after an Apache raid, Hyrum and Martha and their three children moved from the mountains to Colonia Dublan. Here Hyrum set up a blacksmith shop. After four years in Colonia Dublan, the family moved back to the Sierra Madre Mountains to Colonia Garcia. At this time Martha and Hyrum had five children.
     "While rearing their large family, the aid of medical doctors was unheard of," said Eunice Nelson Curtis. "They used their own skill with herbs and other simple medicines. But most of all they relied on the Priesthood through faith and prayers."
     The couple lived in four additional settlements in Mexico from 1898-1912. Their final home was at Colonia Pacheco. When the Mexican Revolution broke out in 1912, the Mormon colonists were forced to leave their farms and homes and return to the United States.
     Martha and Hyrum arrived July 29, 1912, in El Paso, Texas. They stayed in El Paso at a lumberyard with 2,000 refugees until arrangements were made for the family to travel by train to Thatcher, Ariz., where relatives were waiting. By this time Martha and Hyrum had 11 children. Martha lived the rest of her life in Arizona, spending time in Eager, Thatcher, Tucson and Phoenix.
     She died at age 83 on Aug. 6, 1949, in Phoenix, and was buried in Thatcher beside her husband, who had died 11 years earlier.
     In November 1962, about 50 years after the exodus from Mexico, Martha's and Hyrum's 11 children made a return trip to Colonia Pacheco where their last home had stood. The trip brought back memories of an important era in Nelson family history -- an era that helped earn Martha a reputation as a great pioneer woman, faithful wife, and devoted mother.
-- Source: "Hyrum Nelson." Nelson Family History, Volume 1. pps. 164-168.

Return to top

David Walker SANDERS
Martha Frances SANDERS
Sarah Jane VANCE

CHILDREN WITH HYRUM NELSON