JOHN THOMAS WHETTEN 

Son of Sophia Atkin and John Whetton [sic], John Thomas Whetten, who was born 7 March 1862 in Cross Plains, Dane county, Wisconsin, crossed the plains at age two in the John R Murdock Company with his 20-year-old widowed mother and Grandfather William Atkin.  John T. Whetten was my great grandfather and the "Whetten" spelling of our surname started with him.

Sociable and outgoing, John T played the fiddle and called square dances throughout his life. He would carry his fiddle under the seat of his buckboard when he traveled to nearby mountain towns. Years later during my childhood family reunions always included square dances.  

[daughter Bell, John T holding his fiddle, and Belzora]

At age 16, in 1878, he married Agnes Belzora Savage, by whom he had 11 children, 9 living to adulthood.  In 1885  he married Emma Johannah Nielsen, by whom he had 9 children, 4 living to adulthood.  In 1900 he married divorced Loraina Nelson Foutz who had 6 Foutz children, one of whom married daughter Bell. John T and Loraina had no children together.  In 1903 he married newly widowed Ludie Ellis Hassell with 2 young sons and 5 Hassell stepchildren. John T and Ludie had 5 children together.  

L-R, front row: Clarinda, Minda, Florence, 

Middle section: Belzora, Charles, John T holding Warren and Hazel, Thomas, Emma

Back row: Bell, John A, Bert, and Joseph

[Photograph taken about 1897]  

Moving to Mexico in 1889 with Belzora, Emma, 3 children and an infant, the young family left the grave of 2-year-old Edna and moved to Garcia in the Sierra Madre Mountains of Chihuahua. 

Nine years later, in June/July, 1898, Emma's sons Joseph, age 9, and Thomas, age 8, would die 2 weeks apart. In August 1898 Emma gave birth to Henry. Two years later she gave birth to Don Carlos in Aug 1900, and in December buried Minda, age 9.  Her Adelaide, born in Dec 1902, would only live 2 months. Two years later Emma herself would die along with a newborn baby in  Nov 1904. 

Belzora had an additional 3 children born after the above photograph was taken.  Besides Edna who died in 1887, she lost 10-month-old Lawrence in 1894.

 

John T served as bishop in Garcia until all Americans and other foreigners were forced to leave Mexico in July 1912 during Mexico's Revolution. The people fled to El Paso, Texas.  Wife Ludie gave birth to her daughter Ellis, John T's last child, in August 1912 while camped out in a lumber yard in El Paso that the city so graciously provided for the refugees.

 

Returning to Mexico within a couple of years, they first lived in Dublan where John T served as a counselor in the stake presidency.   A U.S. passport application in 1918 states he farmed land, cut timber and lumber, and raised cattle.

John T and Belzora left Mexico to serve with the first group of temple workers in the Arizona Temple when it opened in Mesa, Arizona.

Returning to Mexico, John Thomas Whetten died 15 February 1932, age 69, in Colonia Juarez, Chihuahua.

His original headstone is one of my favorites.  Sadly it was replaced when the cemetery was cleaned up. The second headstone was stolen for the metal it contained. A third headstone, designed and placed by his great grandchildren, now marks his grave