James Wanlass Thompson was born to William Thompson and Jane Adamson Wanlass Thompson February 20, 1877 in Ogden, Weber County, Utah. James Father emigrated from Liverpool England February 18, 1856 on the ship "Caravan". He was 16 years old. He worked on a farm and saved enough money to help bring his family to America.
James father married Annie Shefford, they had 5 children. Annie died October 22, 1874. William later married Jane Adamson Wanlass November 22, 1875. Jane is James' mother. James family moved to Wilson, Utah about 1888 and settled on an eighty acre tract of sandy soil one half mile West and one fourth mile South of the present Wilson Ward Church House. James' father built a four room house for the family to live in. James was the eldest of 13 children. In 1900 his father bought a thirty-eight acre farm from a man named John Parson's which was four miles south of our home at Wilson in Kanesville. It was covered with sage brush and cost thirty dollars an acre. The sage had to be cleard which was done by hitching a teem to a railroad rail and dragging it over the sage to break it down. Then it was ploughed with a sulky plow, pulled by three horses. My brothers would pull the sage out of the furrows, pile it in piles and burn it. This was an enjoyable pastime in the evenings when the neighbor came over to visit and the addition of a few potatoes brought out to roast in the fire with songs and stories made it a real evening.
They raised hay, grain, beets, fruit , sheep, pigs and chickens. His mother would sell the eggs together with homemade butter churned in the old dasher and she made cheese and pressed it in the old cheese press. I remember assisting with all this work. James met and married Agnes Katinka Christensen Hansen January 18, 1911. They had three children.