Rufus Albern Allen Sr. was born Oct. 12 1856 in Old Harmony, Utah. He was the second child of four children born to Rufus Chester Allenand Lavenia Elizabeth Hoopes Yearsley. He passed away Sept. 4, 1938 in Magna, Utah and he is buried in Salt Lake City, Utah
*After
settling in the Salt Lake Valley and many smaller communities throughout the
area, they petitioned for Statehood, but were denied. The approval for Statehood would take almost
50 years and my great-grandfather was a part of
that first legislative assembly.
In the book History of Utah, Orson F. Whintey describes
the early life of my great grandfather.
He write, “...In 1861 he went with his parents to an unsettled part of
Washington County, called Cottonwood Creek, there to reside; and in 1862 the
family moved to a ranch on Laverkin Creek, near Virgin City, where Rufus was
baptized a Latter-Day Saint. In 1866,
owing to the depredations of the Piute and Navajo Indians, the Allen’s settled
in Kanarra. At the age of thirteen the lad
shouldered his musket and stood guard night and day during the troubles of
those times. As a boy he experienced the
life of a pioneer and as a growing youth many of its hardships and
vicissitudes.”
Rufus was a probate judge,
a farmer, an assessor, and tax collector in addition to serving as a Bishop for many
years. I am grateful for his example and
consider him one of Utah’s true native sons.
He was a member of the Constitutional Convention, then on January 4, 1896, signed the
Constitution of the Great State of Utah. Utah being number forty-five in the great United States of America.
Rufus and Sarah Ann were married June 18, 1879 in the St. George Temple.
Sarah Ann was born Jan 2, 1860 in Provo, Utah. She is also the second child of four. Her parents are Alfred Higgins and Diantha Allen. And she passed away Sept.22, 1941 in Magna, Utah. She is buried next to her husband in the Salt Lake City Cemetery.
