Important Family Dates for July

Here are the dates that are important to the family in the month of July:

1: Canada Day
6: Nathan died (1965)
8: Irvin was born (1904)
14: Jim married Mary Francis Hinge (1921)
      Irvin died (1945)
24: Pioneer Day (The St. Johns Stake is hosting the 138th annual Pioneer Days week-long celebration. Get more information here https://stjohnspioneerdays.files.wordpress.com/2016/07/24th-of-july-flyer1-2017bw.pdf or at sjpioneerdays.com.)
25: Kate was born (1899)
      Orpha died (1944)
28: Leland married Alice Geneva Crosby (1930)

A Testimony of the Prophet Joseph Smith

Harris Greer did not leave us any personal writings about his life. Most of what we know about what a great man he was--highly respected, strictly honest, reliable, full of integrity, devoted public servant, tender father--we learn from what others have written about him. But nothing is mentioned about his testimony of the Gospel and devotion to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We get a glimpse of this, however, from something his son Jim wrote:

     I remember that when [Father] came to California, to visit me, how much I enjoyed having him.
     He talked about the good things that were in store for me, if I would become interested and work
     in it, and of what a wonderful man Joseph Smith was. I will always remember the love and
     counsel he gave me then.

Today is the 173rd anniversary of the martyrdom of the Prophet Joseph Smith. Harris must have had a great love for him. Some of that may have been passed down from his parents--especially his mother, who was personally acquainted with the Prophet [see the post on this blog from June 27, 2013]--but it also had to have been something that he developed deep in his heart on his own. I think he would want us to know that today.

Wild Celebration of St. Johns Day

The San Juan Fiestas have been celebrated annually on or near June 24th since the earliest days of St. Johns. The following story was reported in "The Pioneer Press," a local newspaper.

Harris at age 17, one year after this incident

There was a wild time in St. Johns on the day of the Mexican population's patron saint, San Juan, June 24, 1882, when Nat Greer and a band of Texas cowboys entered the Mexican town. The Greers had been unpopular with the Mexicans since they had marked a Mexican with an ear underslope, as cattle are marked, this after a charge that their victim had been found in the act of stealing a Greer colt. The fight that followed the Greer entry had nothing at its initiation to do with the Mormon settlers. Assaulted by the Mexican police and populace, eight of the band rode away and four were penned into an uncompleted adobe house. Jim Vaughn [one of the Greer cowhands] was killed and Harris Greer was wounded.... It was declared that several thousand shots had been fired, but there was a lull, in which the part of the peacemaker was taken up by "Father" Nathan C. Tenney, a pioneer of Woodruff and father of Ammon Tenney. He walked to the house and induced the Greers to surrender. The Sheriff, E.S. Stover, was summoned and was in the act of taking the men to jail when a shot was fired from a loft of the Barth house, where a number of Mexicans had established themselves. The bullet, possibly intended for a Greer, passed through the patriarch's head and neck, killing him instantly. The Greers were threatened with lynching, but were saved by the sheriff's determination. Their case was taken to Prescott and they escaped with light punishment.

[You can read a more complete version of the story (from the Greer point of view) in Errol G. Brown's book The Greer Family and a Look Into the Past available online through the catalog at FamilySearch.org. This story starts on page 42.]

memorial honoring Nathan Tenney,
who gave his life trying to save the Greer boys

Important Family Dates for June

Here are the dates that are important to the family in the month of June:

7th: Kate married Leroy Hall (this was her second marriage; she was divorced from Alvin Stradling)
21st: Nathan born
24th: St. Johns Day/San Juan Fiestas (a 2-3 day event held each year to celebrate the heritage of St. Johns with a barbecue, parade, dance, and other activities)