Essentials
Born: 14 May 1878; St. David, Cochise County, Arizona
Daughter of: Seth Adelbert MERRILL and Lucy Ann MERRILL
Married: Cicero MORRIS, 4 October 1894; Safford, Graham County, Arizona
Died: 6 September 1955; South Gate, Los Angeles County, California

Page contents
One-minute history

BY DARYL JAMES
FROM 'JAMES/HATCH ONE MINUTE HISTORIES' (1994)
     Almira Merrill was born May 14, 1878, to Seth Adelbert Merrill and Lucy Ann Merrill. She was the first child born in the Mormon colony at St. David, Ariz. Her parents were called by Brigham Young to leave their homes and farms in Utah to help settle southeastern Arizona.
     Pioneering the new territory was difficult. When Almira was five years old her mother died at age 23.
     Almira went to live with her grandparents, Philemon Christopher and Cyrena Dustin Merrill. She lived with them 11 years until her marriage in 1894.
     Almira went to school in St. David. She remembered the 1883 earthquake there that shook down the school house and many homes.
     At age 12 Almira moved with her grandparents to Layton, Ariz., in the Gila Valley. There she attended the Academy in Thatcher, Ariz. Also in the Gila Valley she met Cicero Morris, whom she married Oct. 4, 1894, in Safford, Ariz. Almira was 16 and Cicero was 23 at the time.
     Together Almira and Cicero had 13 children over the next 28 years. One child died at birth, one child died in Italy during World War II, and the rest lived long lives. Almira and Cicero established a farm in the Gila Valley and worked hard to maintain it.
     Almira cooked on a wooden stove, pumped water from a well, and did laundry on a scrubbing board. Trips into town were rare and always a treat. Almira's family was poor but did its best to survive.
     "She was a faithful, proud woman," writes her daughter, Lorene Morris Umland. "She survived many serious illnesses and hardships. She was a true pioneer wife and mother."
     In 1927 Almira, Cicero, and their oldest child, Cyrena, traveled to the Arizona Temple in Mesa, Ariz., to be sealed as a family. Many of the other children were sealed to them during a later trip in 1948.
     Gerald Heber James, a grandson, said Almira and Cicero lived with his family at 1515 W. Palm Lane in Phoenix for quite a while in their later lives.
     "They were very quiet," Gerald said.
     Gerald recalled one highlight of his grandparents' lives: "One time Grandpa and Grandma were going to go visit Aunt Cyrena in California, and they were going to fly. It was the first time they had ever flown. They even had a reporter that took their picture, and it was in the paper.
     "Grandpa was sitting in his chair on the airplane, and he sat there and sat there. He finally called a stewardess over and said, `When are we going to take off?' The stewardess said, `Well, if you look out your window, there's the Colorado River down below."
     Gerald said he used to visit the Morris farm in Safford on vacations as a boy. "I remember it as basically having four rooms and a bathroom," he said. The front room was reserved for guests and not used much. Almira died Sept. 6, 1955, at South Gate, Los Angeles County, Calif., at age 77. She was buried next to Cicero in Safford. Cicero had died about nine months earlier.
     Their posterity includes 54 grandchildren and more than 210 great-grandchildren.

-- Sources: 1. Typed history of Almira Merrill, by Lorene MORRIS Umland. 2. Tape recorded interview with Gerald Heber JAMES (grandson). October 1994; Glendale, Arizona.

Return to top

Cyrena
DUSTIN
Almira
MERRILL
Lucy Ann MERRILL
Philemon Christopher MERRILL
Samuel MERRILL
Seth Adelbert MERRILL
Phoebe ODELL

CHILDREN WITH CICERO MORRIS