Excerpts about John Henry Meikle from "History of Mary Meikle's Ancestors," by Mary Meikle

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John Henry Meikle was born 9 November 1873 in Bussnang, Thurghan county, Switzerland. He was the son of Mary Susan Bollinger. (His mother said that his father's name was Edward Barrett.) Henry's mother was a nurse in a large hospital in Zurich, Switzerland.

John Henry was placed in an orphanage near Bern, Switzerland with a Mr. and Mrs. Bardoldi who ran an orphanage. Bardoldi's had no children of their own, but loved children. Henry always remembered them and spoke of them with love and affection. Henry was a baby when he first came to them and Bardoldi's had him until he was ten years old.

His mother, Mary Susan Bollinger, joined the Church and came to America in 1879, settling in Smithfield, Utah. She married Robert Meikle and wanted to have her son Henry brought to America. The Bardaldi's didn't want to give him up. The missionaries were visiting them and they were becoming interested in the church. Even though they dearly loved him they finally decided to send him to his mother in America. They later adopted another boy. Henry came to the United States with some missionaries who were released. He arrived in Ogden in the fall of 1883. When they arrived in Ogden the saints treated them to watermelon (the first he had ever tasted). Henry went to Smithfield where he met his new father and his family.

His mother was called by the Relief Society to take a course in Midwife at the hospital in Salt Lake that she might get her license to practice. The course was to last three months, but she was gone but one month as they said she was qualified for the work.

She left Henry in the care of a Swiss family in Smithfield, while she was gone, thinking he would feel more at home with the people who he could talk to and be understood. Henry didn't like this so he went back to the Meikle home where there were children near his age. When his mother returned he could speak better English than she could.

He learned to help his new father in the tannery. He ground bark for the use of tanning the leather hides for making shoes. (There was a shoemaker shop on Main Street, south of the bank where the barbershop is today). Six shoemakers were employed making shoes. The Meikle home was the old Buck home on Center Street. The Tannery was on Summit Creek in back of the Woolford home.

Henry was sealed to and adopted by Robert Meikle in the Logan Temple on 11 March 1885. He was schooled in the Summit Schools and the University in Logan, Utah. His father, Robert Meikle, died 1 September 1890. (the day the U.S.A. in Logan was dedicated.

He learned to farm and went to Preston, Idaho and worked on the Blackhurst ranch for a season. His mother went to Eureka, Utah as a Nurse, and he went there for the summer to work in the mines. He also worked in the Telluride mines in Colorado. In 1897 he and a group of young men from Logan and Smithfield went to Tetonia, Idaho, located on a 160 acres of land, which he homesteaded. He improved it, built a log house with a dirt roof (which was the pattern in those days). In the fall of 1898 he returned to Smithfield where on the 9 November 1898 took his young bride Susie Hind to the Logan Temple and was married by President Marioner W. Merrill for time and all eternity.

 

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