Joseph Frederick Foremaster &
Margery Manetta Riggs
Joseph
Margery
LIFE HISTORY OF JOSEPH FREDERICK FOREMASTER
(l889-l948)Joseph Frederick Foremaster was a man of adventure. He loved the outdoors and enjoyed traveling. He was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, June 30, l889, and lived there a short time.
As a young man he helped with the roundups in Fredonia, Arizona, and Kanab, Utah, for Johnny Hale, who owned cattle. When he was about eighteen he traveled and searched for work with Mormon Hortt, an early pioneer. They went to Sandy to a new mining camp where they heard wages were highest in the desert, but it was a disappointment because there were no jobs available. They decided to go to Pioche to check about another mining camp. They had planned to ride in a buckboard wagon that carried the mail but they missed the opportunity and ended up walking seven miles from Sandy to Goodsprings, and then another forty miles from Goodsprings to Las Vegas Ranch. The temperature was around 115 degrees and the sun was scorching hot. After eighteen miles they rested in an old shack and fell asleep. When they woke up they had slept through the night and realized they were only half way there and had no food or water to help sustain them across the rest of the desert. In the afternoon they reached the springs that supplied the water to the Las Vegas Ranch and refreshed themselves, and managed to reach the ranch in time for a most delicious supper. After a few days rest, they shared an old buckboard with the mail carrier and proceeded to Moapa. They made arrangements with some Indians to take them in a wagon from Moapa to Pahranagat Valley, a two-day journey. Joe's brothers (John, Otto and Bob) were happy to see them and asked for their help in plowing and planting on the farm.
Joseph's brothers were born in Germany and came with their mother to America when she was converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Their mother, Caroline Schmidt, born June 16, 1844, later married the missionary who converted her, Frederick Christoph Fuhrmeister, or Foremaster, and she was his third wife. Joseph was
their only child to grow to maturity.Mining seemed to be Joe's favorite type of work so he went to Delamar, Nevada, about 25 miles from Alamo. While he was working there he met Margery M. Riggs Botts who was cooking for the miners.
Margery and Joseph were married in Pioche, Nevada, and were later married in the St. George Temple, in Utah, the 15th of December, 1908. The records at the temple show they used their original family name of Fuhrmeister.
Margery had a large home and farm in Alamo where she ran a boarding house and fed the hunters from Goldfield, Ely and Tonopah. Joseph owned a gold, silver and lead mine near Cherry Creek (65-75 miles north of Alamo). After several years he sold the mine to a man by the name of Dresser for $5.000. The farm had horses, cattle, sheep and goats. They grew alfalfa, wheat, barley, oats, corn, and potatoes. Around the home they had vegetable gardens and fruit trees. They also had pigs, chickens and turkeys. This was a wonderful place to raise their four children (LaMar, Lloyd, Viola. and Harold), and Margery's two children (Lynn and Kate) from a former marriage to Michael Henry Botts.
In the winter, Joseph and his son LaMar used to sell beef and pork in Goldfield, Tonopah and Ely. They would take several cows and pigs and just cut off whatever the families wanted. On one trip they unhitched the horses from the wagon and prepared to make camp for the night. About a mile away was a spring to water the horses. The ground was
very rough and the horse Joe was riding shied, slipped on a rock, and fell on Joe's leg. The coyotes were howling close by and young LaMar was scared, but he knew he had to get help. He set out for a ranch where a couple lived, and they came and dressed the badly bruised and cut leg. The next day they continued to Goldfield and completed their work.
Joe limped for a few weeks and it was painful but it healed without any complications.Joseph was called to a position in the church as First Counselor in the Bishopric on November 9, 1909. He served nine years until the family moved to Caliente.
In 1921, they sold the home and farm to Clarence I. and Kate Wadsworth, and moved to the Culverwell Ranch three miles north of Caliente. They ran a dairy ranch until August 15, 1923 when they moved to Las Vegas, Nevada. He had a ten year lease for the Old Ranch where the Mormon Fort still stands on the north end of Las Vegas. While living there he
owned cattle and the Vegas Jersey Dairy. The Old Ranch was a picturesque place where many people came to relax by the cool streams, beautiful shade trees, and swim in the large swimming pool. It was about 10 degrees cooler than in town. Margery used to wash and iron clothes, and cook for boarders at the Old Ranch. Bill and Bud Ronnow and Dan
Crane were some of the people who stayed there.At a Stake Conference held in Overton on June 1, 1924, the Las Vegas Ward was created with Ira J. Earl as Bishop and Joseph Foremaster and Eldon Leavitt as his counselors. About a year later, Eldon Leavitt moved from the ward and Stowell Whitney was chosen as the second counselor. That year they built the first L.D.S. chapel in Las Vegas, on the
northwest corner of Sixth and Carson Street. It was a small frame building with curtains to partition the four class rooms. They served until February 17, 1929. Joseph devoted many hours to the church, was a full tithe payer and bore his testimony often to the truthfulness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He sustained and sent his oldest son, LaMar who was 17 years of age, as the first missionary to be called from Las Vegas. He expressed his feelings that it was a great blessing and felt he prospered more at that time than any other time in his life.Around 1930, they moved to 1001 North Main Street and ran the Vegas Camp Ground and service station. There was a grocery store, a swimming pool, trailers and serveral cabins.
He had a transfer and storage business which he later sold to Clarence Wadsworth and sons. He owned a taxi cab he drove for several years, ran a bus service to Boulder City during the building of the Boulder Dam. He Divorced Margery and was married for a short time to Lillie B. Hargis.
Joe decided to move to Ogden, Utah. where he worked for Wasatch Motors for 32 months. He drove buses to Hill Air Force Base. He joined George Moss and became Vice President of Blue Cab, Inc. He met and married Mary Ellen Fackrell, February 1944.
Joseph, Mary Ellen and her mother decided to take a trip to Evanston, Wyoming, to visit some relatives. They were about three miles from Evanston when they had a fatal accident. It was the evening of October 9, 1948, and the lights of an oncomlng car blinded Joseph. He hit a bridge, and the car landed upside down in the stream below killing all of them instantly.
Joseph Foremaster was 65 years old when he died. He was a trim, handsome man with an abundance of hair touched with a little silver. He was hard working and fun loving, a man of adventure.
Written by Lou Jean Foremaster Sifford (Granddaughter)
Margery Manetta Riggs (still gathering history)
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