John August Franson 1859-1933
Born: 21 Aug 1859
Place: Linneryd, Kronoberg, Sweden
Parents: Frans and Catharina Hakansson Gustafsson
Emigrated: Came to America in 1880
Married: Zilphia Smith on 24 July 1885 in Peoa, Summit, Utah; they were sealed 19 Feb 1915 in Salt Lake Temple
Children:
Elef John (1887)
May Elizabeth (1888)
Annie Catherine (1890)
Minnie Myrtle (1892)
William Smith (1895)
Pearl Esther (1897)
Rosella Winona (1901)
Amos Augusta (1903)
Evalyn Irene (1905)
Died: 29 March 1933 in Oakley, Summit, Utah
Buried: 2 Apr 1933 in Oakley Cemetery, Oakley, Utah
John was born and grew up in Linneryd, Sweden. His last name is different than his father's due to "patronymics", which is where the child takes the father's first name and adds "son" or "dotter" to make their last name. John's father's name was Frans Gustafsson so his last name became Fransson. There were seven children in his family. There were two sisters, a brother, and himself that lived to be adults. He came to America in 1880 and it was at this time that he dropped the second "s" in his name. John worked for the railroad, mined coal and silver, cut timber and farmed. He purchased the Tolbert Ranch at the mouth of Weber Canyon where he settled and made his home in Utah. John joined the LDS church in 1884 being baptized by Niles Pearson and confirmed by John Maxwell. He served as president of the fourth quorum of elders. On 29 May 1888, he became a citizen of the United States. He always voted and was active in civic affairs. He was a trustee and secretary and treasure of the Oakley School Board for over twenty-three years and a member of the district school board for 16 years. During the time he was on the district school board they erected the South Summit High School building. John loved his family very much and always took time to play with his children and grandchildren after his farm work was done. John and Zilphia were sealed in the Salt Lake Temple on 19 Feb 1915 then all the children were sealed to them on 14 Dec 1916. As the children grew they were active in the LDS Church and each one in turn married in the Salt Lake Temple. John was 74 when he died suddenly at his ranch home after a five-day illness of pleurisy. He was survived by his wife, eight of his nine children, and 21 of his 24 grandchildren. Funeral services were held Sunday, April 2, at 2 p.m. at the Oakley Ward Chapel with interment in the Oakley Cemetery.
From history written by Leora Lake Franson:
John was born at Linneryd, Kronberg Lane, Sweden on August 28, 1858. He was the oldest son of Frans Gustafsson and Catherine Hakansson. When he was about 21 years old, John went up to Finland to work. He was with a man who talked about coming to America, that land where there were so many wonderful opportunities. When it came time to go all the gang backed out except John and one other fellow. Without even going to say goodbye to his family John set sail for America and arrived here in 1880. They sailed from Hamburg, Germany. He failed to find all those very wonderful opportunities he had heard about and so he began rambling about from place to place. He got work on the railroad at Omaha, Nebraska. Later he moved to Rock Springs, Wyoming where he worked in the coal mines. From Wyoming, he came to Utah and at Salt Lake attended school for 6 weeks. This was all the school he had in this country. He secured a job cutting timber up Cottonwood Canyon. When he worked there he sometimes came to the top of the summit and could see from there the beautiful green valley which lay farther east, it was here that he got a desire to enter that valley and make it his home.
Memories of John August and Zilphia Smith Franson’s Home and Ranch
John always had a great desire to get over into the Kamas Valley and farm. He loved the soil, he wanted to be out in the sunshine to work instead of in the dark mine hole. Mr. Tolbert owned a ranch up Weber Canyon and when John had a chance to buy this farm for $600.00, he eagerly began to pay for it. He found however, that the six hundred dollars he had paid was only for the improvements on the place. The land really belonged to the railroad and so he had to rebuy his place.
Zilphia became John's wife on July 24, 1885. The two were married at Sissa Pearson's place in Peoa. That very night they went to their ranch in Oakley and began their very beautiful and happy life together... In the fall and winter of 1894 and 1895, John got out a lot of logs and as he had no sale for them he decided to build his family a new home. They had been living, for a number of years, in the old log shop. Mr. Rass Johnson was engaged to build the house...
Bill was the first child to be born in the new house. He was born Feb. 3, 1895.
-"The Life of Zilphia Smith Franson" by Leora Lake Franson
The large white house had three entrances, a flat porch (no one used) from the south, a west entrance with about six steps and a large porch, and the back entrance to the spring and milk house on the east with steps, steeper but with no porch...
As you entered from the west into the large dining room, flowers were in the west window, a heating stove in the center to the north, a china closet in the N.E. comer, a round table in the center of the room and a couch on the south between two doors. One door lead to the parlor with a tall organ, velvet couch and 2 chairs and Victrola. As you went through the south door in the parlor you made a U turn to the left and go upstairs to the bedrooms, with feather-tick mattresses. I slept in one and the other was Uncle Amos's bedroom. The second door beyond the couch in the dining room went into Grandma and Grandpa's bedroom.
On the east side of the dining room was a door and step down into the kitchen. A table was to the right, cupboards on the south wall, a window, door and sink on the east with the water pump tap on the left of the door that went outside. Another window was on the north and the stove to the left.
—F. Blaine Richards
The Franson family lived in a two story white frame house. There were four rooms on the ground level and three rooms upstairs. Evalyn shared a room upstairs with Rosella and Pearl... Their beds were ''feather ticks" made from feathers saved from chickens or turkeys that had been killed. The feather beds were comfortable and especially warm.
There was a large stove in the kitchen fueled by wood or coal. Coal was purchased from Coalville. The wood was timber cut and split in Weber Canyon then packed to the house. A reservoir to heat water was on one end of the stove. When family members took a bath, they heated water in large kettles on top of the stove. A both tub large enough to sit in was set up in the kitchen. A second person was needed to help wash someone's hair by pouring water over his head.
—"The Life of Evalyn Franson Stembridge" written by Louise Marchant, 1987
Granary was in the barn yard just off the cow corral. Grain bins were filled each year. Grandpa often took wheat to Uncle Marlow Jones's grist mill in Echo, Utah, to have it made into germade for mush.
Grandma bottled fresh fruits and vegetables form her garden. During the summer green peas, yellow string beans were fun to pick by the bushels. The bottles of fruit were put down in the cellar under the kitchen floor that we got to through a square hole in the floor just in front of the dish cupboard. Grandma was too crippled to go down in the cellar so I would draw a map of the area and count the quarts of fruit, pints and quarts of vegetables and pints of jam so she would know what was down there. The carrots and potatoes were dug in the fall and stored in the rock cellar that was dug into the hillside across the road from the house.
-Anna Mae Richards Blazzard
When I (Virginia Jones Marchant) was old enough I spent a week each summer with my Grandparents, enjoying them and their farm. They had the best water-cress, green peas and corn I have ever tasted. I would like to go in their parlor which was so pretty to me with a lovely sofa, rug, gold framed pictures on the walls and a large beautiful organ which I would like to play. In the parlor hung a glass chandelier which I thought was the most beautiful thing. To go to bed was sort ofscarey if I was alone because I took a kerosene lamp up a long high stairway to a cool bedroom. Uncle Amos's bedroom was at the head of the stairs so I would sleep in the south bedroom. I was very comfy with the feather-tick mattress and plenty of home-made quilts. They had an accordion in the room I would try to play, but I was warned not to break because it was precious to them. It was fun to run errands to go to the spring house for milk, butter or home-made root beer or gather eggs from the hen house. Sometimes, though, the turkeys would look so huge! One would spread its feathers and gobble and run after me.
—Virginia Jones Marchant
I remember how he liked to get us all around the organ and sing songs. Mother would sit back and listen to us.
—Rosella F. Stromness
Spring House When mother would make bread in the spring of the year, when the water cress was good, she would give us a loaf while it was hot and some butter and we would go out and sit on the log that was in thespringand eat water cress and bread and butter. It was very good.
-Evalyn F. Stembridge
The milk house set over the spring. It had a wooden floor except where the spring run through a space 2 or 3 feet wide. In this running water Grandma set crocks full of home churned butter, crocks of fried sausage "put down" into the frying fat, home-made bottled root beer and pans of milk set to cool to drink. The pans of milk that Grandma skimmed the cream off to chum the butter, were taken in and made into "dutch cheese" or fed to the pigs.
Grandpa always killed a pig or two each spring. He and Grandma "home cured" it, then wrapped the hams, shoulders and bacons in seamless sacks and buried them in the wheat bin in the granary for summer use. Grandpa also killed mutton and lamb for summer meat. (p.38)
I remember Grandpa keeping, round light green river water melons buried in the grain bin until Thanksgiving time. They were surely a treat at that time of the year.
-Anna Mae Richards Blazzard
Farm
Franson's Farm
Our farm was at the mouth of the Canyon on the south side of the river. The soil was fertile. To get water to the farm. Mother and Father with pick and shovel dug a ditch from Swift's Canyon to the farm, a distant of three miles. This was an immense task. As the ditch ran along the hill side, the soil was soft and if leaves etc. would clog the ditch, the water would back up and run over the bank and wash the whole hill side out. As you go along the trail you can yet see places where timber was used to bank the ditch.
-Pearl F. Hortin
Ranch life consisted of milking 12 to 15 cows with Uncle Amos, feeding 3 or 4 pigs, feeding 40-50 hens and gathering the eggs. Also, taking 80-100 sheep out on the hills in the morning up Pinion Canyon. The range cattle were taken up to Swifts and Bear Basin soon after the first of June. A dirt road or trail forked off from the graveled road and skirted the east side of the field and followed the base of the hill up past Alex Evans and finally up the canyon.
Early in the summer a big event was when the little chicks came and the brooder was started up. The chicks grew very fast and after 10-15 days, they were turned out into the yard to pick grass and catch flies. The chicken coup was below the shop next to the pig pen. ...There were usually a small flock of turkeys roaming around the barn yard. One or two hens would hatch a few turks for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners. About once a week, the hen eggs were loaded in the car (1928-30 Cev 5 wheeler) and taken to Hoyt's Store in Kamas and traded for groceries, overalls and other essentials. Material for dresses, shoes and other items were purchased at King's Store. If there was enough change left we sometimes had an ice cream cone, or some licorice.
-F. Blaine Richards
Oakley School
In 1877 a small one room school was started in Oakley. It had only one small window. There were seats cut from rough lumber and as the child studied he would face the wall. The floor was just the dirt. In one comer was a small stove. Each child was required to bring his share of fuel for the winter. There were twenty children who went to this first school. Among them were Zilphia Smith, our ancestor and George Johnson, her brother...
In 1904 a new school house was built. John Franson was one of the trustees at that time. The building was made of brick and was much warmer and more comfortable than the old one. (This building was built on what is now the town park and where our reunion is being held today.) This school functioned until the schools throughout the valley were consolidated, in 1939, and all children were taken to Kamas by bus.
-Echos of Yesterday, "History of Oakley", pp. 221-230, compiled by Mrs. Leora Franson
Father was a community man. He was trustee of the Oakley School for twenty three years. Most of the time he was secretary and treasurer of this group. When the taxes were paid in the fall, Father would go to Coalville and there get from the court house and bank enough money to run the school for the year. The money was in the form of gold, $5.00, $10.00, and $20.00 pieces. He usually had a load of coal to bring home and he would hide the money in a leather bag somewhere in the coal. When he got home he would hide the money in the rafters of what we called the backroom. It was an unfinished room of our home. Each month he would pay the teachers in gold coin for their services. At that time there were thieves, robbers, and bad men along the way. Father was on the school board with seven other men when our town dance hall was built and they worked diligently on that project.
-Pearl F. Hortin
The Franson children rode horses for recreation as well as their means of transportation to town and elsewhere. The younger children rode bareback, John and Zilphia couldn't permit them to use a saddle because of fear they would get caught in a stirrup and be drug by the horse. Evalyn remembers riding to school in Oakley with Amos and Rosella, all three on one horse. The girls wore a riding skirt over their skirt or dress. A riding skirt was similar to a pair of pants. It allowed the girls to ride a horse in a dress and also kept their legs warm in the winter. When the girls arrived at school, they took off their riding skirts and hung them in the hall. As the children grew older, they rode horses with a saddle.
Evalyn first attended school in a three-room building in Oakley. Classes were held for "Beginners" through the Eighth grade. Evalyn studied "normal" subjects such as 'rithmetic, times tables, and reading. They had classes with morning and afternoon recess and lunch time. The Franson children took lunches from home that Zilphia made. It usually was a sandwich or bread and butter and a cookie. The students left their lunches in the hall until non. On the coldest winter days, the food would be frozen when they went to eat. There was no running water in the school house; if a child wanted a drink, he had to go to a nearby ditch to get water. The toilet was also located outside the school building.
—"The Life of Evalyn Franson Stembridge" written by Louise Marchant, 1987
Zilphia became John's wife on July 24, 1885. The two were married at Sissa Pearson's place in Peoa. That very night they went to their ranch in Oakley and began their very beautiful and happy life together... In the fall and winter of 1894 and 1895, John got out a lot of logs and as he had no sale for them he decided to build his family a new home. They had been living, for a number of years, in the old log shop. Mr. Rass Johnson was engaged to build the house...
Bill was the first child to be born in the new house. He was born Feb. 3, 1895.
-"The Life of Zilphia Smith Franson" by Leora Lake Franson
The large white house had three entrances, a flat porch (no one used) from the south, a west entrance with about six steps and a large porch, and the back entrance to the spring and milk house on the east with steps, steeper but with no porch...
As you entered from the west into the large dining room, flowers were in the west window, a heating stove in the center to the north, a china closet in the N.E. comer, a round table in the center of the room and a couch on the south between two doors. One door lead to the parlor with a tall organ, velvet couch and 2 chairs and Victrola. As you went through the south door in the parlor you made a U turn to the left and go upstairs to the bedrooms, with feather-tick mattresses. I slept in one and the other was Uncle Amos's bedroom. The second door beyond the couch in the dining room went into Grandma and Grandpa's bedroom.
On the east side of the dining room was a door and step down into the kitchen. A table was to the right, cupboards on the south wall, a window, door and sink on the east with the water pump tap on the left of the door that went outside. Another window was on the north and the stove to the left.
—F. Blaine Richards
The Franson family lived in a two story white frame house. There were four rooms on the ground level and three rooms upstairs. Evalyn shared a room upstairs with Rosella and Pearl... Their beds were ''feather ticks" made from feathers saved from chickens or turkeys that had been killed. The feather beds were comfortable and especially warm.
There was a large stove in the kitchen fueled by wood or coal. Coal was purchased from Coalville. The wood was timber cut and split in Weber Canyon then packed to the house. A reservoir to heat water was on one end of the stove. When family members took a bath, they heated water in large kettles on top of the stove. A both tub large enough to sit in was set up in the kitchen. A second person was needed to help wash someone's hair by pouring water over his head.
—"The Life of Evalyn Franson Stembridge" written by Louise Marchant, 1987
Granary was in the barn yard just off the cow corral. Grain bins were filled each year. Grandpa often took wheat to Uncle Marlow Jones's grist mill in Echo, Utah, to have it made into germade for mush.
Grandma bottled fresh fruits and vegetables form her garden. During the summer green peas, yellow string beans were fun to pick by the bushels. The bottles of fruit were put down in the cellar under the kitchen floor that we got to through a square hole in the floor just in front of the dish cupboard. Grandma was too crippled to go down in the cellar so I would draw a map of the area and count the quarts of fruit, pints and quarts of vegetables and pints of jam so she would know what was down there. The carrots and potatoes were dug in the fall and stored in the rock cellar that was dug into the hillside across the road from the house.
-Anna Mae Richards Blazzard
When I (Virginia Jones Marchant) was old enough I spent a week each summer with my Grandparents, enjoying them and their farm. They had the best water-cress, green peas and corn I have ever tasted. I would like to go in their parlor which was so pretty to me with a lovely sofa, rug, gold framed pictures on the walls and a large beautiful organ which I would like to play. In the parlor hung a glass chandelier which I thought was the most beautiful thing. To go to bed was sort ofscarey if I was alone because I took a kerosene lamp up a long high stairway to a cool bedroom. Uncle Amos's bedroom was at the head of the stairs so I would sleep in the south bedroom. I was very comfy with the feather-tick mattress and plenty of home-made quilts. They had an accordion in the room I would try to play, but I was warned not to break because it was precious to them. It was fun to run errands to go to the spring house for milk, butter or home-made root beer or gather eggs from the hen house. Sometimes, though, the turkeys would look so huge! One would spread its feathers and gobble and run after me.
—Virginia Jones Marchant
I remember how he liked to get us all around the organ and sing songs. Mother would sit back and listen to us.
—Rosella F. Stromness
Spring House When mother would make bread in the spring of the year, when the water cress was good, she would give us a loaf while it was hot and some butter and we would go out and sit on the log that was in thespringand eat water cress and bread and butter. It was very good.
-Evalyn F. Stembridge
The milk house set over the spring. It had a wooden floor except where the spring run through a space 2 or 3 feet wide. In this running water Grandma set crocks full of home churned butter, crocks of fried sausage "put down" into the frying fat, home-made bottled root beer and pans of milk set to cool to drink. The pans of milk that Grandma skimmed the cream off to chum the butter, were taken in and made into "dutch cheese" or fed to the pigs.
Grandpa always killed a pig or two each spring. He and Grandma "home cured" it, then wrapped the hams, shoulders and bacons in seamless sacks and buried them in the wheat bin in the granary for summer use. Grandpa also killed mutton and lamb for summer meat. (p.38)
I remember Grandpa keeping, round light green river water melons buried in the grain bin until Thanksgiving time. They were surely a treat at that time of the year.
-Anna Mae Richards Blazzard
Farm
Franson's Farm
Our farm was at the mouth of the Canyon on the south side of the river. The soil was fertile. To get water to the farm. Mother and Father with pick and shovel dug a ditch from Swift's Canyon to the farm, a distant of three miles. This was an immense task. As the ditch ran along the hill side, the soil was soft and if leaves etc. would clog the ditch, the water would back up and run over the bank and wash the whole hill side out. As you go along the trail you can yet see places where timber was used to bank the ditch.
-Pearl F. Hortin
Ranch life consisted of milking 12 to 15 cows with Uncle Amos, feeding 3 or 4 pigs, feeding 40-50 hens and gathering the eggs. Also, taking 80-100 sheep out on the hills in the morning up Pinion Canyon. The range cattle were taken up to Swifts and Bear Basin soon after the first of June. A dirt road or trail forked off from the graveled road and skirted the east side of the field and followed the base of the hill up past Alex Evans and finally up the canyon.
Early in the summer a big event was when the little chicks came and the brooder was started up. The chicks grew very fast and after 10-15 days, they were turned out into the yard to pick grass and catch flies. The chicken coup was below the shop next to the pig pen. ...There were usually a small flock of turkeys roaming around the barn yard. One or two hens would hatch a few turks for Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners. About once a week, the hen eggs were loaded in the car (1928-30 Cev 5 wheeler) and taken to Hoyt's Store in Kamas and traded for groceries, overalls and other essentials. Material for dresses, shoes and other items were purchased at King's Store. If there was enough change left we sometimes had an ice cream cone, or some licorice.
-F. Blaine Richards
Oakley School
In 1877 a small one room school was started in Oakley. It had only one small window. There were seats cut from rough lumber and as the child studied he would face the wall. The floor was just the dirt. In one comer was a small stove. Each child was required to bring his share of fuel for the winter. There were twenty children who went to this first school. Among them were Zilphia Smith, our ancestor and George Johnson, her brother...
In 1904 a new school house was built. John Franson was one of the trustees at that time. The building was made of brick and was much warmer and more comfortable than the old one. (This building was built on what is now the town park and where our reunion is being held today.) This school functioned until the schools throughout the valley were consolidated, in 1939, and all children were taken to Kamas by bus.
-Echos of Yesterday, "History of Oakley", pp. 221-230, compiled by Mrs. Leora Franson
Father was a community man. He was trustee of the Oakley School for twenty three years. Most of the time he was secretary and treasurer of this group. When the taxes were paid in the fall, Father would go to Coalville and there get from the court house and bank enough money to run the school for the year. The money was in the form of gold, $5.00, $10.00, and $20.00 pieces. He usually had a load of coal to bring home and he would hide the money in a leather bag somewhere in the coal. When he got home he would hide the money in the rafters of what we called the backroom. It was an unfinished room of our home. Each month he would pay the teachers in gold coin for their services. At that time there were thieves, robbers, and bad men along the way. Father was on the school board with seven other men when our town dance hall was built and they worked diligently on that project.
-Pearl F. Hortin
The Franson children rode horses for recreation as well as their means of transportation to town and elsewhere. The younger children rode bareback, John and Zilphia couldn't permit them to use a saddle because of fear they would get caught in a stirrup and be drug by the horse. Evalyn remembers riding to school in Oakley with Amos and Rosella, all three on one horse. The girls wore a riding skirt over their skirt or dress. A riding skirt was similar to a pair of pants. It allowed the girls to ride a horse in a dress and also kept their legs warm in the winter. When the girls arrived at school, they took off their riding skirts and hung them in the hall. As the children grew older, they rode horses with a saddle.
Evalyn first attended school in a three-room building in Oakley. Classes were held for "Beginners" through the Eighth grade. Evalyn studied "normal" subjects such as 'rithmetic, times tables, and reading. They had classes with morning and afternoon recess and lunch time. The Franson children took lunches from home that Zilphia made. It usually was a sandwich or bread and butter and a cookie. The students left their lunches in the hall until non. On the coldest winter days, the food would be frozen when they went to eat. There was no running water in the school house; if a child wanted a drink, he had to go to a nearby ditch to get water. The toilet was also located outside the school building.
—"The Life of Evalyn Franson Stembridge" written by Louise Marchant, 1987
