Services Held for James Merritt
Funeral services were held Wednesday, Dec 13 at 1 p.ml in the Osmond Ward LDS Chapel for Archibald James Merritt, 84, a resident of Bedford for many years, who died Saturday Dec 9 in the Star Valley LDS Hospital after an illness. Counselor Kay Erickson conducted. Interment was in the Bedford Cemetery.
Archibald James Merritt was born Aug 21, 1877 in West Jordan, Utah the eighth of 13 children of Samuel Swift Merritt and Emma Naylor. He attended elementary school in West Jordan.
When he was 13 years old his family moved to Poea, Utah. Here he helped his father farm and work in the canyon. They lived in Poea until Jim, as his friends called him was 20 years old, then they moved to Star Valley where they settled on a homestead in Bedford.
To earn a living in these early days Jim worked in the surrounding canyons with his father and three brothers. They sold wood by the cord for firewood. He and his brother, Levi Edward, owned and operated a shingle mill up Strawberry Canyon for many years.
Samuel Merritt's family was large but poor, as far as worldly goods were concerned but a very happy congenial and industrious family. No matter how skimpy their food supply was, on one was ever turned away from their door hungry.
James married Maudella Herrick in 1906. Their first child, Maud, was born in May of the following year and when she was one month old her mother died. James mother and his sister Evvie, helped to care of the tiny babe.
On Sept 23, 1909, James married Elizabeth Barbara Perkins in the Salt Lake Temple. To this union three children were born Lawrence, Ethel (deceased) and Richard.
James and Barbara had a small farm north of Bedford where they lived for 20 years. When they moved off the ranch they lived in Bedford for a few years. They 13 years ago, they moved to Afton, where they lived until Barbara died four years ago. Then James made his home with his son Lawrence, Gean and family in Osmond, where he was given loving care until his death.
James had a very cheerful disposition and made friends easily and kept them always. He was a very hard worker. Besides working in the canyon operating a shingle mill, and farming, he hauled milk, worked as a carpenter's helper and dug trenches. No labor was too hard for him if he could earn an honest dollar. He was a very honest and good man.
He worked in the LDS Church in most of the auxiliaries in his earlier life and was a ward teacher most of the time until ill health intervened.
He was a devoted and loving husband through his wife Barbara's long illness, and did everything possible for her. He was always the most happy when he was with his family.
He leaves to mourn his loss two sons, Lawrence, Osmond; Richard, in the armed forces in Germany; daughter Maud Slater, Norwalk Calif,; 17 grandchildren; and 24 great grandchildren; four sisters, Deana Bleazard, Salt Lake City; Delila Walker Afton; Gertrude Kirkbride, Ogden; and Martha Vennie Kirkbride, Preston Idaho; A daughter, Ethel Merritt Ames preceded him in death.

Merritt, Archibald James (i 21 Dec 1961) (1)Star Valley Independent