Leaving Sweden
John William Heder was born September 22, 1856, at Venesborg Gustava, Elfsborg, Sweden [1]Another account lists his birthplace as Uppergarden (Upper Garden), Elfsborglan, Sweden. This was the home given to his father, John Olofson Heder to keep in his possession for as long as he remained in the service of his country. It is not known just when he entered the service, but he received his release in the year 1862. He served under King Karl 14th of Sweden. While in the army, the name “Heder” was added to that of Olofson, hence his children were known by the name of Heder.
In the year 1857, John (Johannes) was baptized into The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, of which his wife, Christina Erickson, had become a member six years earlier. John (Johannes) left Sweden with his wife and children, including John William, April 12, 1863 for America. They arrived in Copenhagen, Denmark, which place they left 29 April 1863. From there they went to Hamburg, and on to Liverpool, England. Leaving Liverpool on Friday, May 8 on the British ship “Kimball” with 654 saints on board under the direction of Hans Peter Lund. They arrived in New York, on June 20, 1863 2 ½ months from the time they left their home in Sweden.
From there they went by train to Council Bluffs, on cattle cars from Council Bluffs to the Missouri River and Omaha. There they started across the plains with ox teams and hand-carts. John (Johannes) and Christina walked every step of the way from Omaha to Salt Lake City. Between camps Christina gathered and carried “buffalo chips” in her apron, to use to make fires to cook on, taking the place of wood, which was so scarce as to be almost nonexistent. They were nine weeks on the plains, arriving at their destination, Salt Lake City, 9 November 1863. John William Heder was then but a boy seven years old.
Pioneering in Utah
John William wrote the following account in pencil on brown paper:
The day we arrived in Salt Lake my father found a small, one-room adobe house for us to live in, in the area which is now known as Millcreek. We had to walk some distance to this little house, carrying our belongings. Father carried the bedding. Mother carried the dutch oven containing about two pounds of rice—all in the world we had to eat. When we were within a quarter of a mile of the house, she, being very tired, set the oven down by some bunch grass, and walked on with the other few things she was carrying. When she returned for the dutch oven, and the rice, it was gone. In the place where it had been was nothing, and that is exactly what he had for our supper—nothing.
The next day Mother, Gustav, and I started out into one of the wheat fields to glean what was left in the stubble. We gleaned for a couple of days, then the owner came and sent us away, saying he needed that grain for his cows and horses. But we were allowed in other fields and gleaned one row at a time. In this way, we secured a little to eat.
The next year father rented a farm and raised wheat on shares. Two hundred bushels was his share. Mother and Gustav and I again gleaned wheat on various farms—to the number of twenty-one bushels. This we sold for $8 per bushel and bought a cow and a yoke of oxen. They said the oxen had crossed the plains with immigrants six times. They were old and poor. But we soon got them in shape so we could use them.
In the fall of 1865, we moved to Huntsville, about 20 miles northeast of Ogden. Here we settled permanently. A man named Peterson got father’s wheat to pay his debts, promising to give Father in return his own wheat, which was in Huntsville. That would save father hauling his wheat so far—a big saving. But when Father went to get his wheat, Mr. Peterson had only a very few bushels and that was frozen, making it unfit for bread. Now we were up against it again for something to eat. So Father went to the mountains to peel bark from pines and haul it to Salt Lake City to sell to the tannery for money to buy bread. It took him ten days to peel the bark, make the trip to Salt Lake and back with a sack of flour.
The next year, 1866, father plowed and put in crops, but they froze and didn’t amount to much, so he continued his bark peeling. The following year, 1867, the crops were a little better, although the wheat was frostbitten some.
During these years, I was herding cows and sheep for one cent a head, helping along a little in this way. I had to go barefoot, and my feet and toes could hardly stand it. Sometimes I would find some old Indian moccasins, patch them up, and they would last perhaps two or three days. The next year, 1868, my father put me to helping him on the farm.
All this time, we had been living in what was our first home in Huntsville—a dug-out. It had two tiers of logs above the ground, a roof of logs covered with dirt, and a fireplace made of adobe, and the chimney protruding above the logs about one foot. In the winter, the snow was generally three feet deep, or more, and often crusted so hard we could walk on top of it, and all we could see of the dug-out was the smoke coming from the chimney in the snowdrifts.
In 1868, we planted wheat and it grew nicely, fine prospects for a good crop. Father and I went to the mountains for logs to build us a new home. As we left in the morning we sat for a few minutes on the hill and viewed the beautiful little valley—all green with growing grain and grass. Our wheat stood about eight inches high—a beautiful sight.
When we had our logs cut and loaded, we started for home. On reaching the spot where that morning we sat looking out over the valley, we just could not believe our eyes! Instead of beautiful green fields, everything was black! Grasshoppers had completely cleaned the fields of every spear of grain and every blade of grass it seemed; then they had laid their eggs and flown away. So it was the same thing over again—go to the mountains after bark.
The war on grasshoppers continued for about three years, and we had to live on half-rations most of the time. Our breakfast usually consisted of a little flour and bran bread and a cup of skim milk.
In the year 1871, we began again to raise good crops, and the earth yielded forth her strength.
When the Union Pacific Railroad was being built through Weber Canyon, father got work and made some money, and from that time on we got along pretty well. Crops matured better too, and we built another, better house, which still stands (1938).
I worked along with Father on the farm, and in building houses and barns for other people. During the time from 1864-68, my mother and my sister had been carding and spinning wool and weaving cloth for the family of Heber C. Kimball and others, and had saved a little money. So we bought another cow and a few sheep.
In 1873 began the hard work for me, for to feed our animals meant that about twenty-five tons of hay had to be cut with a scythe and a swath. I’d be so tired at night I could hardly walk home. But Father would brag of me to Mother, telling her what a good worker I was, so I couldn’t complain after that.
In 1874, the mowing machine came to our help, along with the reaper. These made farming much easier. I was now seventeen years old.
Because of the constant struggle against poverty in pioneer life, and frequent moves, my schooling was very limited, as was the case with many other children in those pioneer times. I had only three or four years of elementary schooling. After that, my father was my instructor, and a good one he was, too. He had mastered several languages as well as several trades in his native Sweden. These trades he also taught to me.
My parents had given up all their possessions in the Old World to come to Zion. Here in Utah, we suffered privations for years just to live. My brother and I felt we could not let them sacrifice further for our education, so we being now well in our teens, hired out in numerous ways and places to help them to get ahead and to take care of my own needs. But I was determined to somehow make my own opportunities for some education. I asked myself, “Does anyone ever get too old to want to know, to learn, to find out, to reach out for new experiences?”
From my father, I had learned not only carpentry, cabinet-making and wheelwright, but other occupations as well: farming, dairying, lumbering, saw-milling, and others. Over the years, I was always able to keep busy at something. At various intervals, I built many homes, churches, schools, barns, stores, railroad bridges and canals, in Utah, Old Mexico, and in Arizona.
Hired Labor
My brother went to Wyoming to work at hauling cordwood and sent for me to come work with him. One day I was driving four horses hitched to the wagon loaded with about two cords of wood. In leading the rack, Gustav had put in front a green quaking aspen with the bark on it. Going downhill the bark slipped, and the wood I sat on began slipping too. It bunted the wheel horses and they started to run. The road was very steep and rocky, and we couldn’t stay on the road. I tried to get off the side, but fell directly across the tugs of the head wheeler and hung there for a minute. I made a lunge to get off for fear of being kicked to death, but I fell under the wheels. The front wheel passed over my right arm, breaking it, and the back wheel went over my back and so badly bruised and injured it that I never fully recovered from it. I was unconscious for six days and laid up for four months. When I got better, I went home.
The next spring, there being no work at home, I went to Montana to work on a large ranch. Wages for a good man were only $15-$25 per month, but this rancher had written, offering me $40 with room and board. A very good thing for me. So once again I left home. I walked all the way, a distance of 800 miles, in eleven days and nights.
I worked there for nearly two years; I cut and hauled wood, milked cows, had charge of a crew of men cutting and putting up 100 tons of hay, rode the range at round-up time, cut and hauled fence posts, set posts and strung wire fence.
Up in the timbers we’d work sometimes for weeks in snow, often up to our waists, starting at 4 o’clock in the morning and never getting back before 9 o’clock at night—sometimes not until 1 o’clock. We were always wet and our clothes were frozen so stiff when we removed them to put dry ones on that they would stand alone. As a result of the exposure, I began to feel rheumatism in my arms and knees.
The next summer I was sent on the round-up again. I liked the work, but the Nez Perce Indians went on the war-path and we were 1,000 miles from home! Everyone left their ranches for the towns and cities but we had no way to go. This was a trying time, with danger on every side. At Horse Prairie, a ranch only nine miles away, six men were killed; but the only thing we could do was to stay and trust in Providence.
This Indian uprising lasted about five weeks before they could be subdued, but we completed the round-up in the fall, and in mid-December I left for home, half promising to return in the spring. Another man who had been working on the same ranch returned with slush and mud. We walked most of the way to Pocatello, then rode to the train from there to Ogden. There Father met us and we rode to Huntsville in a sleigh drawn by a little team of mules—Jack and Jule.
Married Life
It was not long before I knew that I wouldn’t return to Montana. My brother-in-law, Christian F. Schade, introduced me to a girl he had converted in Denmark. Her name, Anna Jorgena Christina Madsen. I soon found she had my heart in her keeping so I asked her to be my wife. She consented and I bought the ring.
On May 20th my sweetheart and I left for Salt Lake in a little one-seated buggy with the little mules mentioned earlier, Jack and Jule, being our team. We rested that night in Ogden with a friend of my parents, then next morning were again on our way.
Arriving in Salt Lake I took her to the home of some friends living in the 16th Ward, while I went to Brother Joseph F. Smith’s home to have my recommend signed. His home was located in the block north of the Temple block, and there he (Elder Smith) ordained me an Elder.
The next day, May 22, 1879, we were married, the ceremony taking place about 3 o’clock in the afternoon. We left the building at 4 o’clock and started back home. We arrived in Ogden to find my father there in the doctor’s care, having taken very ill. We remained in Ogden several days to be sure he was receiving all needed care and was on the mend. When we reached Huntsville we were warmly received and entertained by friends who played harmonicas and used tin pans to beat the rhythm—and how we danced!
We lived in a little two-room house with a basement, and were very happy. Also, we were glad to be living close to our parents where we could help them when we were needed.
I continued to run Father’s farm, raising hay and grain. After a while, it began to look as if we would not be blessed with a family. We went with the young people a lot to socials and dances. Then after being married for four years, our first child, a little girl, was born on July 18, 1883. We called her Minnie May.
I had built a very nice two-story house in Ogden, where we had moved and had lived there for some time, then sold it and moved back to Huntsville.
In 1883, I bought an interest in a saw-mill and the next spring we went up the south fork of the Ogden River to cut logs and skid them to the river so that when the snow melted and the river rose high we could roll the logs in and float them down to the saw-mill. There were five of us, and one of the men remarked that in all his years of riding and working in these mountains, he had never seen a bear. Just then I looked down the hill and there just a short distance away was a big brown bear, sitting on his haunches and with his mouth wide open. I yelled, “Look!”
Carl, the man who had “never seen a bear,” took one look and gave a loud yell. With froth dripping from his mouth, the bear started toward us, coming fast! I had been in the lead going down, but in about three jumps I was in the lead going back, the others were coming, but it seemed like the bear was just about ready to grab the last man. I whirled a large rock, but it just grazed its stomach. One of the men threw another big rock and it just waved the hair on its back. Just in that moment when it looked like the bear was ready to grab Nephi, he stopped, looked at us a few seconds, then turned rocks, leaping ledges, and we just stood there and watched, shaking in our boots—literally—for we were scared.
In 1885, I received a letter from the First Presidency asking me to go to San Juan to help settle that country. I sold my share in the saw-mill and was about ready to leave with my family . But as my father had died the previous October, leaving my 70-year-old mother alone, with me as her sole support, Bishop David McKay and President Shurtliff wrote to the First Presidency and had me released from that mission.
The ensuing ten years were busy and prosperous. Besides saw-milling and farming I had a sizable flock of sheep, and also contracted the building of houses and barns.
Here in Huntsville, five of our children were born. They were Anna Christina, born October 19, 1885; Maude Elizabeth, born December 18, 1887; Rhoda Sophia, born April 21, 1890; John Earl, born January 31,1892; and Walter Oliver, born March 3, 1894.
Pioneering Old Mexico
Then in 1895, I took a trip to Mexico to look over the country, particularly the Mormon colonies, and I decided to move there. So on my return home, I harvested my wheat and oats, arranged with my brother-in-law to take charge of my sheep, and soon had my business in shape to leave.
My friend, Bert Engstrom, and I bought a saw-mill. I chartered two railroad cars, one to ship the saw-mill and the other machinery in, and the other for our horses and furniture. Also a passenger car for my family and those who had decided to go with us. There were Carl E. Peterson and family, W.G. Moyes and family, William Moffat and son, also C.F. Schade and A.F. Macdonald, whose home was in Mexico. He had been on a trip to Salt Lake City and wished to ride home with us, and there was plenty of room for him. There were twenty-four of us in the car, special for us, no one else was allowed. We arrived in El Paso on the 17th of May, having left Ogden on the 15th of May.
We had to layover in El Paso, or rather in Ciudad Juarez for 9 days, getting our machinery, horses, furniture, etc., through customs house. We had started to unload the cars for inspection when a man by the name of D. M. Stuart, who was colonizing came along. This Mr. Stuart was well acquainted with the customs officials. When I told him we had to unload for customs inspection, he said to wait just a little. In less than an hour, he returned with orders to load everything back in the cars and get ready to leave that evening, where we were met by B.J. Johnson, D.B. Brown, Ben Judd, and Nate Tenny, who were there from Colonia Juarez. They were ready to load our stuff on their wagons to go overland to the colonies.
Things had been badly misrepresented to me about the country, and about the need and market for lumber. But we set up the mill and sawed lumber for a few houses. Before long the mill was moved to Garcia, or little round valley, two or three miles before Garcia. We lived in Colonia Chuichupa and there we had some hard years, plowing, planting building fences, with not much to eat but cornbread or mush. But we pulled through, and within a year or two were able to build a nice house and barn. Our first year was hard, but within a couple of years, we were able to build a nice house and a good barn. In this home, two more of our children were born. They were Lillian Juanita, born July 29, 1897, and George Roland, born February 7, 1900.
Later, I traded the home in Chuichupa to I.L. Wilson for his home in Colonia Dublan. Here our ninth and last child, Stanley Marius, was born on February 12, 1908. After a few years, I purchased another place in the north end of town—the Hansen place. I sold our first home in Dublan to my daughter and her husband, George F. Sevey. In July 1912, Americans were endangered because of the Mexican Revolution. Responding to directions from the authorities of the Church, the Mormon colonists all left their homes in Mexico and came to the United States, where most of them remained.
We went to El Paso, where all the people were temporarily sheltered in a large lumber yard, until we could determine where to go to begin again. We, with our family, together with our two married daughters, their husbands and families, went to Jaynes, Arizona near Tuscon where a company was clearing land and getting it ready for planting. Later after a few months, we moved to Binghamton where we lived for a year or so. Then in 1914 we came to the Salt River Valley, Arizona, bought a home at Mesa, and have lived here since that time, except for two short stays in California.
[Note: John William Heder died November 6, 1940, and was buried November 10th; his wife, Anna, died June 9, 1955, and was buried June 15th; both in Mesa, Maricopa County, Arizona, where they had lived for so many busy years.]
