Joseph Pinkney and Sarah West June Stinson
Early 1888, the lives of Joseph Pinkney Stinson and Sarah West June Stinson and their children were forever changed when they welcomed the Mormon missionaries into their Goshen, Ala., home, heard their message and became members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
Joseph was born to Joseph Terrell Stinson and Hannah Patience Moore on Jan. 4, 1850, in New Providence, Ala. Sarah West was also born in New Providence on Feb. 27, 1852, to James Henry June and Elizabeth Rebecca West. They were both children of farmers, grew up there and married in 1872.
A desire to be closer to more church members, 1889 found them in Safford where Joseph had employment at the flour mill and where 18-month-old Alma died in 1890, the results of whooping cough, not having fully recovered from measles. They moved to Mesa, where their last daughter was born.
Sanford, Colo., was their next home. Due to winters being too cold combined with the growing season too short, they relocated to Espenola, N.M., where their last child, a son, completed their family. Another move took the family back to Mesa.
With flowery letters on the merits of Pima from Joseph’s sister and husband, Rosebell and Jim White, they returned to the Gila Valley, this time to Pima. They settled in a two-room lumber house two blocks from the school, with the two wagon boxes serving as bedrooms. Then a four room brick home near the depot (current site of Bush and Shurtz) became home until the children were grown, married and had homes of their own.
Joseph appreciated animals and was never happier than when he could doctor someone’s sick cow or horse.
Sarah became ill and passed away in 1906, with Joseph following a year later. This left five children to be cared for by two older brothers, as the three oldest girls had already married. Ida married Clifford Farrington, Annie (Layfayette Judd), Bettie (Charley Ferrin), James (Agnes Nuttall), Allie (Alvin Lines), Aurelia (Rube Duke), Willie (Bernice Steel) and Porter never married.
Joseph and Sarah have among their posterity, school teachers, medical people, engineers, farmers, contractors, miners and church workers. Many of these call the Gila Valley home.
Information for this story is from the Pima Centennial Book. This and other individual and family stories may be found at the Eastern Arizona Museum in Pima, Thursday through Saturday, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. each day.
