James Quales MANTLO

                   NOTES: See short history of James Quales, William Gilson and Lynch T Mantlo in my history file.

NOTES: January 2007 - All info verified with death certificate online in the Utah Death Certificate index. See Printed copy
in my Doman/Mantlo certificate file.

NOTES: March 2007 - See 1920 Utah Census in my Mantlo Census file.
See copy of early family picture (with the first six kids) in my Mantlo file.
See family group sheet with pictures of all the children in my Mantlo file.
See picture of headstone found on "findagrave.com." in my Mantlo Cemeteries file.

NOTES: September 2007 - Death certificate has his DOB 1860, headstone has 1861.

NOTES: A Little History of James Quales Mantlo, written by Ollie Mantlo Bowen (before her death).  I edited it on 1 Feb 2009.

NOTES: The early family picture was taken about 1898/1899, the family was still in Kentucky.  Bernice, the oldest child, is in the back.  Middle row from left to right:  Ethel, James Quales, Martha Ann, and Leonard.  Front row:  Floyd, Ophelia, baby Floella, and Opha.  Alice was born in 1900 while the family was still in Kentucky. Wallace, Ollie and Helen were born later after the family was in Utah.  See pictures on their Family Group Record.

James Quales Mantlo was born 22 Dec 1860 in Springfield, Robertson, Tennessee, to William Gilson (Jilson) Mantlo and Mary Ann (Polly) Hart Mantlo.  His schooling was very meager, probably not more than four years all together; however, he could write beautifully and read very well.  He learned the carpentry trade as an apprentice to his father and he was very good at it.  Child #10, Ollie doesnt remember much that he told them about his childhood, except that he thought his mother was near perfect.  When he was about sixteen, his parents moved to Kentucky and he went with them, they had a small farm in the Fairview area which is a little north and west of Elkton.

NOTES: James Quales and his father worked at odd jobs of carpentry and other things in addition to the farm, which was not very large.  Ollie loved his stories of his youth in Kentucky.  The topography of that part of Kentucky is very heavily timbered and swampy and his ghost stories were real thrilling to the children.  The stories were based mostly on fireflies at night but why spoil a good ghost story by telling that.

NOTES: Ollies happiest memories of her father was of the times she could go places with him in the buggy or wagon.  He was very proud of his horses and took special care of them, they were always fat and shiny and he never allowed them to be driven above a slow trot, and the longer it took to go some place with him, the better she liked it.  He sang songs and recited poems that she never heard afterward.  She remembered thinking he was the best singer in the world, actually he couldnt sing very well at all.

NOTES: From what James Quales told about his mother, Mary Ann Hart Mantlo, she must have been a very gentle and lovely person and he was much like her, quiet and even tempered and patient, but very firm if he needed to be.

NOTES: James Quales met his wife, Martha Ann Hightower, in Elkton.  She was the daughter of George McNiece Hightower and Eliza Rachel Carsley Harris, a widow.  Little is known of her childhood except that her mother was married three times and three times a widow with a large family to take care of.  So, as soon as the children were old enough to do anything, they had to work at anything they could find to do.  As a result, her education was limited also but she was an excellent reader and could write very well.

NOTES: The first years of their marriage, James Quales worked as a farm laborer mostly, doing carpentry work whenever the opportunity came along, so they had to move about from one small town to another quite often.

NOTES: About 1895, they bought Pinkney Hightowers  farm in the Tabernacle District, north and west of Elkton.  The old Hightower burial ground is still on this farm, but not very well taken care of (1959).  They grew tobacco and some corn on their farm.  He also had hogs, which was a must with everyone in the south at that time.  Everyone had hogs and every fall they had hog killings.  A group of neighbors got together and they would butcher enough hogs for all and the women folk furnished the food.  It was a social affair and everyone enjoyed the day, including the kids.  After that day there was the tremendous job of taking care of the meat.  Nothing was wasted  Lard, sausage, head cheese and the sides, ham and shoulders to get ready to cure and smoke, and after all that was done there was soap to be made from the cracklings and leaf fat.  The soap was made with lye that they had made themselves from the wood ash from the stove or fireplace.  There was an ash hopper in the yard and all the wood ash was dumped into that and water was added from time to time and it dripped thru into a crock underneath the hopper and that was the lye they used to make soap and to cut the water to wash with.  (What a long trail from that to an automatic washer and detergent).  Everyone had a smoke house where the hams, sides and shoulders were smoked in hickory smoke and where the meat hung the year around.  Everyone had tobacco barns also, where the tobacco had to be hung, dried and smoked.  The one James Quales built while he was there is still standing and being used, but the house was gone  (1959).  It was still standing but in bad shape in 1948, the first trip that Ollie and her sisters made to Kentucky and Tennessee.  The house was just one large room with a lean on the side which was the kitchen and there was a room in the attic where some of the older children slept.  Much of the land had to be cleared of stumps and trees before a crop could be planted.

NOTES: James Quales and Martha Ann Hightower Mantlo were of the Methodist Church and the minister was convinced the Mantlos were going to hell for sure after their baptisms into the LDS church.  No one knows for sure when the LDS missionaries first found the Mantlos.  Elders Alpin from Pleasant Grove, Utah, and Elder Charles Udy and Frank Burns of Fielding, Utah  and an Elder Rooche was mentioned as meeting with the Mantlos and were instrumental in their conversion to the LDS faith.

NOTES: Although their home was small and already crowded, they took the missionaries in and treated them as family.  They made their headquarters with the Mantlos most of the time.  Martha Ann and her sister Eliza Jane Cannon were baptized 3 August 1899 and James Quales Mantlo and daughter Ethel were baptized in October 1901.  At that time, anyone who had anything to do with the Mormons was considered off limits and it was no different with them.

NOTES: In 1902, with encouragement of the Elders, they began to make plans to move to Utah.  Mary Bernice was married at the time and her husband, George Stokes, refused to come with them, and that was the only regret they had about coming, was to leave Bernice there.  But as it turned out, she did go with them, she was so sure that if she came he would follow her, that she talked her father into bringing her with them and he did.

NOTES: Elder Udy promised that he would have work for James Quales and Leonard when they arrived and a house for them to live in.  Their farm and equipment was sold for little more than enough to get them all to Utah.  At that time, there were eight children and one on the way.  They left Kentucky on 16 April 1902.  They took the train from Springfield, Tennessee to Collinston, Utah.  It took four days of traveling.  Martha Anns sister, Eliza Jane Cannon and her husband who had come to Utah two years before, met them.  The first few weeks must have been heart breaking ones as the house that had been promised turned out to be nothing more than a shed, but new, the boards were just butted together and it started to rain the first night there.  Everything got wet.  The next day, they got some tar paper on the roof and things worked out after a while.  They stayed there for about a year.  #9 child was born there on 9 Aug 1902.  They moved to a house closer into town.  It was a block south of the church.  About a year later, James Quales got a job working for Mr. Stevens and they moved north and east of the town of Fielding, into an adobe house.  It was there that #10 child, Ollie, was born.  The children had to walk three miles to school.  About two years later, James Quales bought a few acres of land from Joseph Robinson and built a house on it.  It was located ½ mile south of the old Fred Combs home on the main street.  It had only three large rooms to begin with but Martha Ann was so happy to have a place of their own and to be settled permanently.  It was there that #11 child was born.  They worked out at Snowville for awhile and after Leonard lost the sight in his eyes from blasting ice in the canals at Wheelon, they all moved to Tremonton to run the business Leonard had bought there.  Daughter Alice died in 1918 from septicemia caused from a bad tooth, and Bernice died (in 1905) in Kentucky of Typhoid Fever after going back there because her husband would not stay in Utah. Some say she died of a broken heart because she missed her family so much.

NOTES: James Quales was never quite strong enough to put the principals of the gospel above the actions of man so he never took an active part in the church but he was a very religious man in his own way.   He became ill with what they thought was sinus trouble and he moved closer to the doctor whose practice was in Ogden..  He died 21 April 1928 in Ogden, Utah at his daughter, Nanny Floyds home, from stomach cancer.  After his death, Martha Ann sold their house and built a small house next door to Leonard and Mary.  She lived there until her passing on 4 July 1935 in Tremonton, Utah, from according to her Death Certificate Chronic Mitral Regurgitation.  One of the daughters said she died from a stroke.  They are both buried at the Riverview Cemetery in Tremonton, Utah.