Alvin Black history

Alvin Black

Born- October 2, 1887 – Huntington, Emery County, Utah; the fifth child of Isaac Edwin Black and Nancy Easter Allen
died June 10, 1955 in Husum, Washington at the home of his son Clell Merrial Black
buried in the Glendale, Utah cemetery
Elder, Farmer, and Miller

Married Sarah Elizabeth Cox April 25, 1907, Manti, Utah, (daughter of Elias Cox and Mary Elvira Sherman of Huntington; pioneers Sept. 24, 1848, Heber C. Kimball company). She was born March 12, 1888.


Their children:
Claude Elias b. May 8, 1908
Vernon Alvin b. March 9, 1911
Marelda Esther b. April 30, 1914
Clell Merrial b. 11 February 1918
Leora Grace b. 5 September 1922
Wanda b. 20 May 1924

We know very little or nothing about his younger growing up years. The child next older than he, died in his infancy. His sister just older than he, died at about 13 years of diphtheria. His father had a second marriage and he had some older brothers, Martin, the oldest, and Roy, about his age. He had three brothers and sisters younger than he from his mother’s family.

He worked with his father in the flour mill.

About age16 he went from Huntington to Glendale

When they lived in Roosevelt, Alvin worked for Studebaker Implement Co. (wagons, etc.), and owned an old Studebaker car with two extra seats that folded up against the back of the front seat.

When they were married, Alvin’s mother went with them and slept with Sarah in the wagon box. Coming back after being married, Alvin’s mother piled the bedding out of the wagon and told Sarah to go sleep with her husband. Sarah had expected to still sleep with her

When Claude was born, his Dad went for the midwife, then crawled into the buggy and went to sleep. Her mother went out and woke him up and said, “you’re part of this, get in there with her”.

Alvin loved to hunt and fish and usually bagged his deer and caught his limit of fish. When hunting a lot of the time he would only take one bullet and always said that would be enough to get one. He liked to give the deer a chance.

In 1910, Alvin and Sarah went to Colonial Juarez, Mexico with his father, to help run a grist mill where some of the Mormon polygamists had settled to keep from going to jail after the Manifesto was signed. Things went quite well here for a while, the people built houses, planted gardens and fruit orchards. A grist mill was built to supply their flour. Sarah said the snakes were quite bad there and they would often find them under their beds or curled up somewhere in the house where it was cooler. (Snakes on bread) Their main food was pork, beans, flour, preserves, and fresh fruit.

When the uprising (insurrection) took place, they were forced to flee out of Mexico to save their lives. They had to give up all their homes, fruit orchards, and whatever they had. I imagine it was a sad feeling. Pancho Villa lived in the hills nearby in a large mansion. He drove a fancy buggy with four white horses to pull it.

When they left, Sarah was put on a cattle car with Claude, who was about two and one-half years old, to go out with the women, children and the elderly. She was also expecting another baby (Vernon). They were shipped to El Paso, Texas. Saints in the states met them and helped them find a place to stay until they could get to their loved ones.

Alvin didn’t want to fight with the Mexicans, so he came out on foot, staying a while after Sarah came home to get his paycheck. As he and another fellow came out of the office with their pay, they were robbed of everything. It took him at least a month to make it to Huntington, Utah, where his family was. All he had to protect himself with was his little .25 automatic, which he carried in his coat pocket. When he got home, he had holes in the pocket from having to use the pistol. He had to hide during the day and travel at night so he wouldn’t be seen.

In March 1911, Alvin came home with another fellow. They had ridden in boxcars and had picked up lice somewhere when they came out of Mexico. Grandmother Cox sent them out in the orchard to take a bath. They took the tub out into the orchard, put blankets on the trees, and took their bath.

Alvin was a good fiddler and used to play for dances. He had his violin with him in Mexico, but had to leave it with friends, who sent it to him later. Edgar Cox and Edwin Black also played with him. He also played his mandolin very well, all by ear. His old mandolin is in possession of his daughter, Leora. His son Vernon has the violin.

Many of the people in Long Valley, Utah, depended on his plumbing, car repairs, and carpentry.

His family were in Kanab a short while to help build a flour mill, but it burned down so they left and went back to Huntington and brought Sarah back to Glendale. Marelda was about two months old.

The family moved around a lot. Some of the towns they lived in are:
Huntington, Utah
Ferron,UT
Castledale ,UT
Colonial Juarez, Mexico (1910)
Elsinore, UT – sugar mill – 1911
Kanab, UT – 1914 – built flour mill but it burned down
Glendale, UT – March 1913
Huntington, UT – Feb. 1914

Other notes on Alvin from his family —
• Glendale Board
• R.E.A. Getting in electricity
• Church – High Priest
• Sunday School counselor – Supt 1940 – 41
• helped get electricity
• helped get the telephone into the valley
• homestead on Glendale Bench
• post fence – Vernon and Claude made
• construction road foreman 1924 – Claude and Vernon helped
• cook in Huntington
• drove school bus to Orderville (had contract)
• ran cook shack out of Hurricane for sheep shearers – 1932
• Ferron
• Castledale mill before going to Mexico