Histories

Legend of the West

BY MRS. EARL STAFFORD

FROM THE NEWS BULLETIN OF BELEN, N.M.
JANUARY 21, 1955

Few People can boast of as many descendants as this tiny lady who weighs only 90 pounds and is 91 years old today. She is the mother of 14 children, 74 grandchildren, 196 great grandchildren and 46 great great grandchildren, making a total of 330 direct descendants. Eliza Bloomfield James was born January 21, 1864 at Hyde Park, Utah, to Mr. and Mrs. John Bloomfield, active workers in the Mormon Church. They were called to Obed, Arizona as pioneers in religious work when Eliza was 11 years old.
Romance entered her life three years later when she met and fell in love with Joseph James, 11 years her senior. Their faith decreed that they be married in the Mormon Temple and since there was none in Arizona, they started the long trek back to St. George, Utah, a distance of several hundred miles. When they arrived at Lee's Ferry on the Colorado River the ferry was across the river with no one on hand to bring it across to them. After taking in the situation, Joseph decided there was nothing else to do except to swim across and bring the ferry over, while he left his bride-to-be standing on the bank full of trepidation and fear that he might not make it across. The river was wide at that point, so in order to come out where the ferry was launched he walked a mile up river, knowing the current would carry him at least a mile downstream. Eliza says that she had never prayed harder in her life then she did as she watched the tiny speck as it battled the swift current, visible one minute and the next out of sight. After 77 years she says she has qualms when she thinks about it and wonders what might have happened to her there alone in the wilderness if Joseph hadn't made it across.
Before she was twenty and already the mother of three children, her husband decided to go to Mexico to establish a church (this probably meant another call from the church for the group to go). They with five other families started the long dangerous trip by covered wagon, many of them becoming ill on the way. They settled at Colonia Juarez, and lived in dugouts for the first few years. They were eyed with suspicion and distrust by the natives who did everything to make them leave, even coming into their dugouts at night and stealing their clothing while they slept and at times taking the bedclothes off their beds.
The pioneers took sacks of grain for seed the next year, hauling them high in the trees away from the horses. Imagine their surprise next morning when they found only empty sacks dangling from the branches. The natives had punched holes in the bottom of the sacks, taking the grain as it trickled out. Smallpox broke out the first year, adding to their hardships. Besides nursing her own family, Eliza found time to care for many others who were ill. The little colony with all the grit and determination of early pioneers, stuck it out and finally prospered in spite of all their difficulties and hardships. They accumulated land, herds of cattle and a saw mill in the nearby mountains. It was at the sawmill that Joseph lost his life while trying to save a worker who was deaf and couldn't hear the logs rumbling down the mountainside and both were crushed to death. Two of their 14 children died while they were in Mexico.
In 1912, after spending 30 years there, these families were given 24 hours notice to leave when Pancho Villa started a revolution and tried to overthrow the government. The accumulation of all those years, amounting to about $50,000, had to be left behind. Eliza, who had been a widow for four years, took her family and a few personal belongings and started for Ramah, N.M., where her parents had gone more than 30 years before as pioneers.
None were harmed by the rebels, but such incidents as this took place. Several renegades entered the home of an old grandfather, taking his rocking chair, which they tarred and feathered with feathers from his bed. They then took the chair to the public square as a warning to the people if they didn't leave. Besides her remaining 12 children, Eliza helped raise six orphaned grandchildren.
She is the mother of Mrs. J.W. Ashcroft and grandmother of John, George and Joe (Blackie) James, all of Los Lunas.
Her ready wit and humor has carried her over many a trying situation, and she has a zest for life that many people only half her age lack. She lives alone in Ramah, although several of her children insist on her living with them. She does all her own work except her laundry, never misses a square dance, rodeo or Indian festival and says she expects to be around for a long time yet.
Mrs James has made one trip back to her old home in Mexico. Five years ago her daughter, Mrs. Ashcroft, and a grandson, Joe James, and family took her back. But everything had changed so much in the 40 years since she left. Only the house and apple orchard were still there. The mountains had been cleared of all timber and the river that ran past their house had dried up. But after seeing the old place once more, Eliza is being reconciled to burying her memories along with the past.