Sarah Luvenia Roberts was born 4 May, 1863, at Jefferson
County Alabama. The daughter of Elijah Roberts born in
1817, Sinclair County Georgia, and Mary Ann Aaron, born
25 March, 1828, at Orangeburg, South Carolina. Sarah was
5 years old when her father died. Her mother re married a
man named Neesmith -- He died after Sarah came to Idaho
(no information on this). Mary Ann Aaron Roberts, Sarah's
mother lived to be 106 years old and lived many years with
Sarah in Enoch, Texas. She died and was buried at Enoch,
Texas, near Sarah's grave.
Sarah married William Butler Townley when she was 16 1/2
years old. The Townley families were hard working people
and owned lots of property and were prosperous. Some were
farmers. (Sarah's father - in - law, David William Townley,
had a large home and 600 acres of farmland.) Some Townleys
sold real estate property, some were bankers, some merchants
and etc. The town of Townley, Alabama was named after
William Butler Townley's great-great grandfather, Daniel
Townley, who settled there in the 1700's.
Sarah and William B. Townley had a nice home and farm,
which was all paid for, when he died. Sarah told her daughter
Luvanah (Lou) that often he walked the floor holding his
head in his hands. It is thought he had a brain tumor. He
died on 30 march, 1891, and was buried at Townley, Walker
County, Alabama. He and Sarah had four children:
1. Mary Leona Townley born 10-10-1882
2. Martha Jane Townley born 12-30-1885
3. William Thomas Townley born 14-14-1887(died 5/14/89)
4. Luvanah Townley born 09-06-1890
When he died, Sarah's oldest child, Leona, was 8-years-
6-months old and her youngest, Luvanah (Lou), was
6-months-old. Sarah sent word to her mother and
step-father and they came with buggy and wagon and
moved the family (about 20 miles) to their home.
Sarah sold her home and farm, and stayed with her
mother, Mary Ann Roberts-Neesmith, for about two
years.
One evening, a 57-year-old neighbor came to their door
to talk to her step-father and mother. He said that he
wanted to marry Sarah, that "he was a widower with
several boys and Sarah was a widow with three girls.
His boys needed a mother and her girls needed a father."
He said he and his boy would sleep in the barn that '
night, and in the morning they could give him their
answer. Jeremiah Franklin Files was 57-years-old,
and Sarah was 30-years-old. They were married on
29 August, 1893. It was a marriage of convenience
for both. Leona, Sarah's oldest daughter was 11-years-
old, Martha was 9-years-old, and Luvanah (Lou) was
3 years old. Jeremiah had a farm and a house and he
tolerated the girls and cared for Sarah. The marriage
went well until about 1897 or 1898.
Leona, Sarah's oldest daughter, tells it best. She says,
"There were many churches already firmly established
and people didn't want to believe in any other new ideas.
I had been taught to pray and, of course, not knowing
anything about mormonism, I had often gone to sectarian
churches.
"One day when I was about 15-years-old, two mormon
missionaries came to our town. Humble and good men
they were, preaching the Gospel of Jesus Christ."
"After hearing them I was so impressed, I could not
put it out of my mind." Southern people were very bitter
about these missionaries, and the people sought to drive
them out of the county." "By this time, I had a step-father
that told me I must give this up, as I was (in his mind)
disgracing him and the family. Despite what he said,
I studied and went to the meetings with a close girl-
friend."
"Persecution was so great that we 'mormons' were no
longer allowed in school. My step-father was so against
it that more than once I was marched home from meetings
at the end of a buggy whip or a hickory limb. On 8 May,
1898, when I was 16-years-old, my mother and my
grandmother, Mary Ann Roberts-Neesmith and I were
baptized."
"About this time, my step-father told me to take my
religion and get out, in no uncertain terms." "As if
in answer to my prayers for somewhere to go to
worship as I knew right, a missionary William Larsen
from Clifton, Idaho, ask if I would be willing to work
and pay back my train fare if his father would send the
money. I readily agreed." The night I left, a mob
gathered and drove the missionaries from the region.
Meetings and etc. were discontinued for a time. The
midnight train was flagged down by this girl of 17,
leaving home, family, friends and belongings to come
to a place to worship as she knew was right." "The
hills of Idaho in March, 1899, looked pretty barren!"
I'm sure Jeremiah never knew his wife and his mother-
in-law were baptized mormons!!
"There were 12 children in the Larsen home. She
cooked, cleaned, washed and ironed -- sometimes
up to 18 hours a day for $1.75 per week. In one year,
the ticket money was paid back and she saved an
additional three years to help bring her widowed
mother to Idaho.
Jeremiah and Sarah Files had two boys born to them,
1. McKinley born in July 1894 and
2. Jessie Herbert born December, 1897.
Jeremiah Files died in April, 1901, at age 65.
He and Sarah had been married 8 years. He died
of Pneumonia. Sarah stayed in Alabama 5 years.
By then the missionaries were back, but still not
welcome. Sarah and her daughter Luvanah (Lou)
talked in my presence of the hiding of missionaries
from mobs, of washing their bloody garments
after a beating and of once cleaning the tar and
feathers from their face, arms and back.
The evil one was still doing well in Alabama.
Sarah at 38, Luvanah (Lou) at 15, Mckinley Files
at 7, and Herbert Files at 4 came to Cleveland, Idaho,
to claim and prove up homestead rights to 180 acres.
Martha, her second-born daughter, married Albert King
and stayed in Townley, Alabama. Leona helped her
with her train fare, and they arrived there in July, 1906.
Leona had married Albert Sant in 1904. Albert and
George Oscar Sant built the first house (or rather, a
shack, and later a nicer home) on her homestead
property. What a hard time she must have had the
first winter, two small boys and a 16-year-old girl
to help her prepare ground, supplies and heavier and
warmer clothes and etc. for that first winter. Sarah
was a hard working, industrious, moral and religious
lady. She never complained, or nagged. She just did
what had to be done. Her back was as straight as a 2x4
and she walked with her head held high, and shoulders
back. I'm sure none of her children or grandchildren
ever slumped in her presence. I remember her saying
"I'm 84-years-old and have never had a back-ache.
You know why? because I stand and sit straight!!"
Sarah's last daughter Luvanah (Lou) married
George Oscar Sant on 23 July, 1907, one year
after they left Alabama. Sarah stayed in Idaho on
the homestead for 12 years. The cold was really
cold for a southerner and she heard from friends
who had left Alabama so they could worship as
they wanted. Some had gone to a small branch of
L.D.S., just 2 1/2 miles from the Upshur County
Seat of Gilmer, Texas. They wrote how fertile
the ground was, how wonderful the climate, and
the entire community was L.D.S.
The more she heard, the better it sounded. Sarah
at age 50, McKinley at age 19, and Herbert at age 16,
sold their homestead, put a wagon, two horses, other
farm animals, tools, furniture and her family in a
railroad boxcar and headed for Enoch, Texas. She
loved the warm weather, and the crops grew without
frost or snow to kill them. They were among friends
and she was happy. She bought land and they built a
nice home and life was good.
Sarah lived to be 96-years old. She died 2 February, 1959,
at her home in Enoch, Texas. She is buried beside the
little church she worshipped in. She was a wonderful
grandmother. She did all her temple work as she made
visits here to Idaho in later years. Her children are all
sealed to her and William Butler Townley. What a
reunion they must have had as one-by-one they each
joined her in paradise.
*written by her loving granddaughter,
Norma Sant Green Dorsey. My mother was
Luvanah (Lou) Townley and my father George Oscar Sant.
Their family of five sons and five daughters are now with
Grandma and her family, with the exception of myself and
my oldest brother, Cecil Leroy Sant. October 31, 1997
