Family Memorial – Frances Kimberley

This is one of three handwritten family group sheets documenting Theodore Turley’s marriages and children with Frances Kimberley, Mary Clift, and Sarah Ellen Clift. (We are not aware of any family memorials documenting his marriages and children with Eliza Clift or Ruth Jane Giles.) The original document is currently located at the Church History Library in Salt Lake City, Utah (MS 7983).

This family memorial describes Theodore’s large family with his first wife, Frances Kimberley. Theodore provides birth dates and places for both himself and his wife as well as their marriage date. The names of all 10 children are given, along with birth dates and places. Death dates and places are provided for three of the children (Frances Amelia Turley, Obia Turley, and Johnathan Turley). Curiously, a death date is not provided for his son, Theodore Turley, Jr. We know from his 1837 letter to Isaac Russell, though, that this son likely died during that year. Theodore also notes his father’s death date and location.

This memorial is more complex than the others. It appears in some spots that Theodore wrote over an initial pencil draft with ink. There are also items clearly added long after the main text was written.

Comments on Theodore’s death information: At the top of the memorial page, directly below Theodore’s own statement of birth and marriage, someone added Theodore’s death information: “Died in beaver city August 12) (1871) (1871) with a cancer.” We do not know who added that information. The August 12th date on this memorial (and on the Sarah Ellen Clift memorial) has traditionally been used by family members to document Theodore’s death. Unfortunately, historical documents have now come to light that throw that date into question.

Transcription from papers put together by David Roche Turley II for the 2016 Theodore Turley Family Organization Field Trip to Beaver and Minersville, Utah.