Stories From The Files

Tragedy in the Ray Family When the Dam Went Out

by Jennie Jensen Hancock

The Ray Family
Back Row:  Dewey & Mrs. Ray
3 girls:  Hazel, in front of her mother, Ethel, and Lily.  The dog, Bobbie.

Violet Willden Ray was born 29 November 1874 in Beaver, Utah to John and Margaret McEwen Willden.  The Willdens had 11 children--two born at Fort Willden (now Cove Fort) the others in Beaver.  All grew to maturity.

In the early spring of 1887, when Violet was 12 years old, her parents decided to move to Mancos, Colorado to join other relatives who were already there.  In the company were the Willdens and their 8 younger children; Margaret's sister, Elizabeth McEwen, her husband Henry Walters and their 7 children; their brother Joe McEwen; Lavina Ellicker, Joe Armstrong, and a boy names Merrimore or Merriweather.  The trip was made in covered wagons.

Regardless of which route they went out of Beaver, the trip was not easy.  There were miles of desert waste, rocky mesas, and canyons.  There were few tracks to follow.  Once they became lost and wandered around for about a week.  The children's Uncle Joe wouldn't let them out of the wagons for fear of scorpions and centipedes.

They crossed the Colorado River at Hite, then known as the Dandy Crossing because it was so much better than the other river crossings.  The group reached Mancos on 10 May that same year.

Violet married Reece James Ray on 31 December 1893.  He was born in Peoria, Illinois.  Seven children were born to them: Olga, Olive, Dewey, Girland (died in infancy), Hazel, Ethel and Lily.  Mr. Ray died of Cancer in August of 1914 leaving Violet with 4 children still at home to support.

Dewey had had typhoid fever which affected his heart.  The doctor advised his mother to take him to a lower altitude in Arizona.  She purchased a wagon and team and she, Dewey 17, Hazel 8, Ethel 6, and Lily 4 prepared to leave Mancos.  The morning they left, our family went to bid the goodbye.  I was only 11 but a friend of my folks had given me a camera.  I took their picture just before they climbed into the wagon.  Two childless couples traveled with them in another wagon.

When they reached St. Johns, Arizona help was badly needed to repair a leak in the Lyman dam.  Jennie Palmer and her husband kindly let them stay at their house which was about a quarter of a mile below the dam.  Dewey worked with the team a a scraper the day the dam broke.  The Palmers had gone to St. Johns to buy some things for the last day of school (Mrs. Palmer was a school teacher) and attend a dance in the town.  They left their 3 small children with Mrs. Ray.

Mrs. Ray and her 3 little girls were sleeping in a bed.  When the dam broke Hazel awakened her mother saying she could feel water in her hair.  Her mother immediately carried Ethel and Lily out.  Before she could reach the house for more children the water was too deep and she was swept away.  Panic-stricken, Dewey jumped in the water and he was also drowned.  The three Palmer children were drowned, as was also Mrs. Ray, Hazel, [along with Dewey].  Hazel's body was never found.  Those who found Dewey's body said every bone in it was broken.  Mrs. Ray's hair was so full of cockle-burs it had to be cute close to her head.

As soon as word reached Mancos, Mrs. Ray's brother Elliot and her older daughter Olive, went immediately by car to St. Johns to make funeral arrangements and take the two little girls back with them.

Lily live a few years with my parents (my mother being Mrs. Ray's sister), and Ethel stayed with another sister, Martha Kernan.  When Elliot married, he took the two little girls until they married.  Both are living near Los Angeles.

Hazel was a happy child.  It is ironic that all that day she sand "Good-bye I Hate to Leave You", and "On the Next Rainbow I'll be Home"--both popular songs at that time.

All of the Ray family's loved ones and relatives who remember them will be forever grateful to the people of St. Johns who searched for the bodies, and to the Relief Society women who made Mrs. Ray's burial clothes and all the other kindness they showed at this time.

The [picture included above] is a copy of the one I took of the family.  The enlarged and colored one hanging in the museum is one my mother, Celiea W. Jensen, had made from the original.

My father's father, Soren Jensen, built the first [LDS] meeting house in St. Johns, also the tithing granary and office with the help of other men.

                                        --Jennie Jensen Hancock