Myrtle
Greer 1886-1965
by her sister Florence Leoma Greer Crosby
Myrtle was the first
child born to John Harris and Orpha Nicoll Greer. She was born 18 February 1886
in Concho, Arizona. Her brother John and sister Sabina were close in age and
her sister Lillian was born when Myrtle was five, so the “young’uns”
had built-in playmates to grow up with. Myrtle learned to play the
mandolin, to paint, and to do many kinds of handwork. She
attended school in Concho and in St. Johns.
It was in St. Johns that
she met Benjamin Brown. Ben and Myrtle kept company when Ben
took a missionary preparation class at the LDS Academy in St. Johns in
1904. Ben served a mission in Liverpool, England, and on his way home from
England he stopped at the Greer Ranch to visit her. After Ben proposed and
Myrtle accepted, Loe Burgess drove a team and wagon to take them and
Jay Burgess & his fiancee, Jessie Wiltbank, to Holbrook. At the
Holbrook train station, the two couples entrained for Salt Lake City and were
married in the Salt Lake Temple 9 October 1908.
After their marriage they
lived in Eagar until 1920. Ben was elected treasurer of Apache County and the
family moved to St. Johns with their five children. Their last child, Benjamin, was born in St. Johns in 1924.
In 1923, Ben discovered
he had diabetes. It became worse and in 1933 he was admitted to a Los Angeles
hospital for several weeks to get it stabilized. He died 14 July 1935 in
St. Johns. Myrtle raised the family in her little home in St. Johns
just west of the elementary school. While visiting her sister Bina
in Salt Lake City in March of 1965, Myrtle fell ill and told the doctor
she had a gallstone that hadn't passed. She was admitted to the hospital
on Wednesday 24 March and died 45 minutes later.
