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All of my great grandparents were converts to The Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-Day Saints (the Mormons) in the mid 1800s. My
dad’s side of the family was converted in England and Tennessee.
My mother’s ancestors were natives of Switzerland, England, and of
English descent living in Capetown South Africa when they joined the
Church. That should give my family a lot of hybrid vigor! You might
wonder why they would all join our Church; it was because they were
all searching for the true Church of Jesus Christ on the earth.
Our Church was organized April 6, 1830 by Joseph Smith, who was a
prophet of God, in Palmyra, western New York State. Our early mem-
bers went to Kirtland, Ohio, and then to Jackson County in western
Missouri, and then to Nauvoo, Il. They were severely persecuted and
driven from their homes, and Joseph Smith was killed by a wicked
mob. He died a martyr, which sealed his testimony with his own blood.
Brigham Young then became our Prophet, and led our people across
the Great Plains in covered wagons, arriving in the Salt lake Valley on
July 24, 1847. July 24th is one of the biggest holidays of the year here
in Utah. From there, they settled all over the western United States
in the beautiful valley’s of the mountains, and also in South Alberta,
Canada, and northern Mexico. They came to this area that nobody
else wanted, so that they could worship God as they so desired, live in
peace and not be molested by the rest of the world. There was nothing
much here, and they had to develop the first irrigation in the United
States. But through the hard work, sweat, perseverance, and with faith
in God, they made the desert blossom as the rose. From a beginning of
six members, our Church now has over 14,000,000 members world-
wide. It is one of the fastest growing churches in the world and has the
largest building program of any organization in the world. The church
has quite a few large ranches, and runs more breeding cows that any-
one else in the United States.
In February 1856, my great grandfather, James P. Anderson, was
called by Church leaders along with 13 other men to settle the beauti-
ful Beaver River Valley. My great grandfather Yardley and his family
arrived a short time later. My great grandmother Eliza Morton joined
the Church in England when she was 18 years old. Her wealthy family
kicked her and her sister out, and they came to America. She never saw
or heard from her family again. They joined the Martin handcart Com-
pany, and pulled handcarts across the Great Plains. They started late
in the season and got snowed in up in Wyoming. They ran out of food
and of over 500 souls that started out, only 300 of them lived through
it. They said that they were sometimes so weak from lack of food that
the handcarts pushed them some of the time. Brigham Young heard
of their desperate plight and sent teams and covered wagons to rescue
them. She then came to Beaver where she was the first school teacher
and later married my grandfather. He died of an ear infection after they
had only been married a few years, and she was a widow until she died
at 85 years of age.
My mother’s family all settled in Cache Valley in Providence, which
is just south of the Idaho border. There, they were farmers, cattlemen,
and had a store and mercantile business. They were very hard work-
ing, prosperous people. One of my uncles, Ray Theurer, was elected
President of the Utah Cattlemen’s Association, and was also
a Cache County commissioner for many years. Another uncle was
Superintendent of Cache County schools. Mother graduated from
Utah State University at Logan, and came to Minersville, 15 miles
west of beaver, to teach school. She met my dad, and they were soon
married.
My grandfather James H. Yardley was in Partners with his two broth-
ers, and they were always in the cattle business. One brother, Uncle Al,
would take a herd of steers and cows and drive them to winter range
down on the Arizona Strip. He would take a pack horse and potatoes
and salt bacon and live in a tent out there with them all winter. In the
spring of 1908, he was coming home from Arizona, and when he got to
the northern end of Long Valley, he took the wrong canyon and ended
up in the head of Asay Creek. He said this was the most beautiful spot
he had ever seen in his life. It is a beautiful mountain meadow valley
with some big springs and one of the most beautiful streams in the
world. He saw the man who owned it, who said, he wanted to sell it.
So he came home and got my granddad and they went back and bought
it for $5,000. This has forever changed our lives. They then acquired
one of the first forest permits on the Dixie National Forest, running
500 head there, which joined the ranch. It is 70 miles from Asay Creek
to Beaver, and they always drove the cattle back and forth on horse-
back, taking about three and-a-half days, until the late 1940’s, when
we started trucking them. In 1920, granddad went back to Kansas and
brought the first Hereford cattle to this area. Again in 1939 and ‘40,
they went to Colorado and bought replacement heifers from the old
master Hereford breeder of the United States, Fred Deberard of Krem-
mling, Co. We continued to buy registered Herefords, both bulls and
heifers, from many other top breeders of the country. We had as good
of Herefords as there were in the West. About 35 years ago, we started
cross breeding some of them with Angus. Then when they brought
the first Simmentals to Canada, I went up to see them and while there
saw Cunia, the first Maine Anjou bull brought to the North American
Continent, and fell in love with him. We have been breeding Simmen-
tal and Maines ever since that time, and the rest is history.
I was always active in 4H and FFA, and started showing cattle then,
and have enjoyed it ever since. I always believed in doing my very best
at everything I ever did. In fact, my uncle roy calls me a perfection-
ist. So I have always tried to raise the very best cattle possible. I have
always liked to have the best corrals, fences, gates and improvements,
so that everything is convenient and handy. I have always loved good,
fancy colored horses, and I got my first paint mare when I was 14
years old, and I have had that same family of horses ever since. They
are just like part of our family. We do everything we can on horseback,
and spend many long hours in the saddle.
Until I was 18 years old, my dad was in partnership with his broth-
ers, Ike and Roy. We would start haying the 20th of June; cutting, rak-
ing and hauling all at the same time, using eight to ten teams of horses
until the middle of September. When my dad and his brothers divided
up, I worked with dad until he died. I was so busy breeding good cattle
that I didn’t get married and start raising kids until I was older in life.
I met Denise, who was raised in Coalville Utah, and we got married
on April 18, 1981. I never thought that I could love anything as much
as my wife and my children. I was the eldest and only boy in my own
family. I have five lovely sisters that all graduated from college and
were all school teachers. All but one of them lives along the Wasatch
Front of Utah, and she lives in Omaha Nebraska.
I would like to tell you about my dad, who was the greatest man I
ever knew, and was my best friend. He was always over to Asay Creek
or other places, and never went to church much until he was 27 years
old, when he was called on a mission to England. Most of our young
men volunteer and are called for two years to go on missions and
preach the Gospel. They pay their own way. After he came home, he
was still a great cattleman and horseman, but he was also a stalwart
pillar in our Church. Our congregations are called wards and are
presided over by a regular member that is called a bishop. My dad was
a bishop’s counselor for eight years, then a bishop for nine years, and
a Stake President for 15 and- a-half years, and then a stake patriarch.
A stake is a geographical area made up of several wards. He was also
president of the Beaver River Water users about all of his mature life,
and was appointed by the Governor to serve on the Utah Water &
Power Board, and later on the Utah Oil & Gas Commission. He lived
to be 89 years old.
I would like to briefly tell you some of the things we strongly believe
in. We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and
in doing good to all men. If there is anything lovely, or of good report
or praiseworthy, we seek after these things. We believe in the ten Com-
mandments, in the Golden rule-that we should treat others as we want
to be treated-and love God and his son Jesus Christ, and our neighbors
as ourselves. We believe our bodies are temples of God, and that we
shouldn’t use things that harm our bodies. So we don’t use alcohol,
tobacco, tea or coffee, or hard drugs. We strongly believe the FAMILY
is the basic unit of any society. We know we will live after death and
that we can be married for time and all eternity by proper authority in
sacred buildings of God, called temples, so that we will have our fami-
lies in heaven. We believe in high moral standards and cleanliness.
We strongly believe that the Constitution of the United States is the
greatest document ever written by men on government. We believe that
our founding fathers were inspired by God when they wrote it. In fact,
they could never agree on anything until they started praying about it,
and then they were able to write it. We believe that individual freedom
is the greatest gift that God has ever given to man. To PRESERVE
OUR FREEDOM IS A SACRED OBLIGATION.
Our Heritage And History The Reasons We Live In Utah
By Gib Yardley
