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Life Histories of Merwin and Martha Hansen Thompson

50 Pages (Adobe PDF)

Merwin was born November 1, 1885, in Scipio, Millard County, Utah. He lived in Scipio for the first nineteen years of his life. He was the first child of Elizabeth Yates and Henry Thompson and was named Henry Merwin Thompson after his father, though he went by Merwin, his preferred name his whole life. His sisters and brothers were Bessie (Hansen), Vera Louise, Leland, Gordon, Sterling, Shelby, Ethel (Taylor), and Norma. Vera died as an infant. Norma lived to be eight years old. Sterling told about wearing dresses as a young child. On this page we have a photo of Merwin in a white dress and a black wide-brimmed hat when he was two or three years old. Dressing little boys like this was evidently a custom in those days. The family was in Scipio because Merwin's grandfather, Daniel Thompson, brought his family from Fillmore to Round Valley in 1868. While in Fillmore he had served as Second Counselor to Ira Hinckley, President of the Millard Stake.

(Gordon B. Hinckley is his grandson.) This stake president called Daniel to move to Round Valley to be its first "Presiding" Elder. A presiding elder functioned like a bishop in those days. He was the ecclesiastical leader of Round Valley, which was later named Scipio by Brigham Young. Daniel was sustained as bishop March 9, 1869. At that time, there were 100 families living in Scipio.