Eli was born in Springville, Utah on September 23, 1856, to Abraham Day and Charlotte Melland Day. His father had two wives, Charlotte being the 2nd wife, and they all lived together in the same house at first. His only memory of Springville was when he and three of his brothers tried to follow their father into the field, but they wandered out into the south bench above town and became lost in the sagebrush and cedars. He was only three years old and was so frightened that he never forgot this experience.
While he was still three years old, his father moved Charlotte and her children to Mt. Pleasant where they had a small adobe home that had been purchased from Nathan Staker (Eli’s future father-in-law).
Eli remembered that he got his first “pants” at age five. Up until that time he wore the usual “sissy clothes” that all children wore, whether boys or girls. One Sunday while he was still in his “sissy clothes” (about four years old), his mother sighed and said, “Oh I wish I had a fish for my dinner.”
“Mother, make me a fish hook and line and I will catch one for you,” replied the child.
“Alright, hand me my workbasket,” the mother said.
With Eli’s help, she doubled and twisted spool thread and soon had a fishing line for him. She put some little pieces of lead on it for sinkers and bent a pin for a fish hook and took a cork from a bottle for a float. Eli got a dry willow for a rod and, with a piece of fat pork for bait, he was ready to catch his first fish.
“Eli,” said his mother, “go to the fishing hole, let the hook into the water at the head of the hole and allow it to float on the cork to the end of the hole. When the cork bobs under three times, jerk!” Eli walked to the well-known fishing hole and did as he had been directed. He pulled up a nice little fish, but did he touch it? No! But quickly climbing the bank, holding it out at full length, skirts swishing about in the breeze and shouting at every jump, he made his way back.
“I’ve got one Mother! I’ve got one Mother!” Yes, he had a little trout about ten inches long, and his mother had a “fish for her dinner.”
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Eli was very excited to be able to start school, and his favorite subject was history. Also, he loved to recite and sing in school and in other places, although he was very bashful and would “blush like a girl.” His mother and his sister Dora taught him long recitations such as “God Made the Old Man Poor” and “The Boy Stood on the Burning Deck.” Eli had very few books to use and had to borrow books to get his lessons from. Blackboards were almost unknown in these pioneer schools. Eli also spent a lot of time as a child herding in the fields barefoot. While herding in the spring or fall, he would often catch big green frogs, so then they would have roasted frog legs – a tasty treat.
Eli’s love of reading history once nearly got him into trouble. All his older brothers had gone to work in the mining camps, and Edwin was wanting to go, too. Eli asked him why he wanted to go to such places and Edwin said that he wanted to learn something of the world. Eli said, “That is the worst part of the world. I can get more and better knowledge of the world in one hour from reading history than you could get in all summer in one of those rotten holes they call a mining camp.” Sometime later, his older brother Ira, having heard what he had said, threatened to beat him up for that opinion. It didn’t happen, but Eli said that he would have fought for his belief that reading was the better way.
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Eli and most of his friends loved to go fishing, but they couldn’t afford the 25 cents for a store hook and line, so they would make fishhooks out of pins, wire, or needles. One day a boy named Neal Christofferson teased Eli to kick Will Morrison, saying he would give Eli a “store hook and line” if he would do it. Eli was human, and he succumbed to the temptation. It brought on a fight – the only fight Eli was ever ashamed of. Not that he got licked! No, it was because he had let a boy persuade him to pick a fight. Eli later asked for Will’s forgiveness. He always believed that it was “low down” to pick on anyone, entirely wrong to fight with his brothers, and a cowardly act to strike a girl or woman. If girls gave him a bad time or struck him, Eli would take revenge by kissing them!
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In 1865 and 1866, the Black Hawk War was on and the Indians made many raids, stealing cattle and horses, killing people, burning houses, etc., making scary times for the children who were forbidden by parents to go away from the town. It was at this time that Eli developed a strong fear of the dark, which bothered him until he finally conquered it as a grown man. It was also during this time that Eli and a large group of boys went out south of the town graveyard to swim in an adobe hole that they had filled with water. They left their clothes lying on the banks. Suddenly, the bass drum boomed from the public square and the flag was run up to the top of the library pole! An Indian raid somewhere! Did those boys stop to put on their clothes? No! They grabbed their clothes and scampered for a town as fast as their legs would carry them! They stopped at the edge of the town to dress, thankful that they were alive.
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When Eli was eleven years old, he was working for a neighbor named Andrew Peterson. This Peterson had a mule named Mary that would nearly always buck if she was ridden fast. One day, Peterson took Eli fishing with him – Eli riding the mule. They fished until late in the day, catching quite a lot of fish, and started for home after the sun was down. Peterson had a good saddle on his horse and rode on ahead, leaving Eli behind on the tricky mule. Remember – Eli was afraid of the dark. He was more afraid of the dark than he was of the mule, so he tried to make her go fast in order to catch up to Peterson. Of course, the mule threw him off, and he hurt his ankle badly (it was most likely broken). Peterson took him crying to his mother, who tied up the ankle. But he was suffering terribly with it, so after a short time, Charlotte dug some of the burnt adobe off of the back of the fireplace, pulverized it, making a poultice of it for his ankle. The pain soon eased and he was asleep in about 15 minutes. Amazing!
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Every spring and fall, the cattle were all rounded up from the range and separated according to brand. At one of these cattle “drives,” Eli and his friend Will McArthur had climbed up the south gate of the old fort and were watching the cattle pass in and out. Perched up there twelve feet high, they were enjoying themselves until a boy from Moroni, a little larger than they, came along. This boy had an ox whip with a buckskin lash about five or six feet long and stock about the same length. He was showing off with his big whip. When he saw the two boys up on the gate, he walked over and ordered them down, threatening them with the whip. They refused to come down, and he began lashing them. Eli ordered him to stop or he would get down and lick him. But he did not scare worth a cent, but continued using his whip on them. Well, Eli came down, but the boy looked pretty big to him. To try to get out of it, he walked near and said, “If you lash me again, I will lick you.” He did, and the tussle was on. Eli soon had him down and crying. George Cantland pulled him off, and that Moroni boy gave Eli the “worst cussing” he ever had, promising that if Eli ever came to Moroni he would beat him to death. Eli was actually afraid to go to Moroni for years after without a good escort!
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At a Fourth of July celebration in 1866, Eli ran in a sack race and won first prize – a beautiful chrome picture of roses. He prized it highly and his mother hung it on the wall. Some time later, an old woman came to the Day home. She was a good friend of Eli’s mother and she was moving away. She wanted something to remember Charlotte by. Charlotte asked her what she would like and, after looking around, she chose Eli’s picture of the roses. Charlotte gave it to her. Eli’s heart was nearly broken, but he didn’t say a word about it. What self control for a boy so young! He doubtless never forgot the hurt, though.
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Now for a couple more fish stories. One day while Eli was about ten years old, he started up Pleasant Creek, fishing with his homemade hook and line. He came upon several boys fishing in a large hole. Most of these boys had store hooks and lines and some of the boys were older than Eli. There was a large trout in the hole and the boys had gathered to try to catch it. Eli joined them and, as luck would have it, he caught the big fish. It was nearly one-and-a-half feet long. Some of the other fellows were angry at him and jealous because he had caught it with a needle hook. They went on up the stream together, keeping together because of Indian fears, and then they returned to town. One of the big boys then took Eli’s big fish from him, mutilated and soiled it until it was worth nothing, then grudgingly let Eli get it back. But Eli didn’t go home entirely empty-handed – One of the Northbend boys traded him the bodies of his fish for the heads of Eli’s fish so that he could show off.
Another day, Eli’s older brother Ira said to him, “Rye (they called him that – short for Azariah), let’s go fishing in Sanpitch today.”
“I haven’t got a fish hook and line,” said Eli.
“Well,” replied Ira, “I’ve got two store hooks and lines and you may take one of them and fish on shares. You may have half the fish you catch. You have the first, me the second, you the third, me the fourth, etc.”
“Alright,” said Eli. “I will go with you.”
They went up to the river and began to fish. Luck seemed to favor Eli, as the first trout was quite large, the second a little smaller, the third a trifle larger, the fourth some smaller, and so on to the eighth. When they were ready to go home, Ira looked at Eli’s string of fish which were larger than his and he said, “Rye, I will give you that fish hook and line for your four trout.”
“All right, sir!” was the ready reply. What a lucky day for Eli! He had earned a 25 cent store hook and line! But neither the day nor the luck was ended yet. On their way home, as they got to the bend in the river, they found two or three other boys fishing and very excited. They said to Eli and Ira, “Don’t go home yet! There is a trout in this hole as long as a man’s leg!”
“How do you know he is as long as a man’s leg?” was the question.
“We have pulled him to the top of the water two or three times!” was the answer.
There was no question about – they could not go off and leave such a fish as that loose in the Sanpitch River, so they baited their hooks and joined in the fishing. The other boys were so excited that when they felt the fish take hold of their bait, they jerked at once, and so they would lose him.
It was not long until the fish took hold of Eli’s bait. He managed to restrain himself until the fish had the bait well into his mouth, then he jerked with all of his strength. It took all his power to get the fish out of the water. Was it as long as a man’s leg? Well, not quite, but it was the largest trout that Eli ever saw caught with a hook. Was Eli proud? As proud as a peacock. He had earned a store hook and line and caught the biggest fish of his life. He later wrote: “Don’t talk of your lucky days unless you can equal that one.”
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As a small boy, Eli remembered several times when Brigham Young visited Mt. Pleasant and he was able to shake the prophet’s hand. He never missed an opportunity to attend meetings when Brigham Young was there.
When Eli was about 12 years old, he and his brother Herbert took six traps into the hills and came back with six coyotes. They sold the skins to the Co-op Store for 50 cents each. Eli asked his father to buy an ax with his share of the money. This was a splendid ax and Eli used it in the woods for many years.
One fall, Eli and his brother Herbert were going for a load of wood. When they got nearly to their destination, Eli discovered that his ax was missing. He told Herbert to go on ahead, as he wanted to go back and find his ax. Eli was not fourteen years old. As he went along, looking for his ax, he promised the Lord that if He would help him find the ax, he would thank Him in vocal prayer. Well, he did find the ax, and then he had a problem on his hands that made him tremble. He had never prayed vocally before, and to kneel down in secret seemed to him a very difficult task. After walking slowly along for some time, he at last plucked up enough courage to kneel down in the dust of the road and pray to his Heavenly Father and thank Him that he had found his ax. That was the beginning of Eli’s secret prayers, and he later said that from then until he was eighty years of age, he very seldom missed praying secretly every day.
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Another time when Eli and Herbert were going after wood, they saw a couple of boys just ahead of them also going after wood. One of the boys came back to ride with them, to be sociable, but Eli did not like the story that he told them. He related how he and his brother-in-law had gone into the cedar hills and found several hundred cedar posts that had been cut and piled by John Hasler, a poor cripple. These young men had hewed of the old ax marks from the posts so as to make them appear like new posts, and hauled them home. Eli felt awfully indignant, although he said nothing. Later Eli said to Herbert that he was going to report the fellows, but Herbert talked him out of it. Well, Eli lived to regret his decision. It wasn’t long after that that Eli and his father spent six weeks cutting poles, only to have the same thieves haul away nearly all of their poles, disguising them in the same way they had John Hasler’s posts. Eli and his father rode over to the thieves’ place and they were sure they could identify their poles, but his father would not prosecute.
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When Eli was about fourteen, his sister Dora’s first baby had a large swelling on her neck which made her suffer greatly. It got worse until Dora brought her to Charlotte’s house, crying, and asked Eli to lance it for her. He hesitated, but she insisted, so he took an old jack knife from his pocket and sharpened the end the best he could. Dora let her mother hold the baby, and she herself ran around behind the house so she wouldn’t have to watch. Eli struck the swelling once with his improvised lancer, the baby screamed, and Dora flew back to look at his cruel work. She saw a drop or two of blood on the swelling, grabbed the baby, said some unkind words to Eli, and went off to her home in a fury. About two hours after that, she came back very pleased and thanked Eli for what he had done. He had cut through the outer skin, and in just a little while the swelling had opened and run a lot of pus. So the pain was relieved and the baby was sleeping. Now Eli was a doctor! What would he be next, he wondered?
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Eli did not do a great deal of hunting for game, but one day after the day’s plowing was done, he and his brother Edwin took the horses to the pasture along the river for the night. There Eli saw a lot of ducks swimming on a pond, so he said to Edwin, “I am going to get the old musket.” (It was the gun his father had used in coming across the plains to Utah.) He retrieved the gun, powder horn, caps, and shot and hurried back to the pond. The ducks were waiting. He sneaked up until he was close enough for a good shot. Taking careful aim from a kneeling position, he fired. What a fluttering and swimming there was! Not one duck flew! He jumped up and ran toward the ducks, shouting to Edwin, “You get what you can from this side and I will run around on the other side and get them.” With the help of a pole, they managed to get all the ducks that were in the water – seven in all.
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One time, Eli’s mother gave him a piece of ground and told him that if he would spade it up, he might have what he raised for his own. That pleased him and he went to work with a will, fertilizing, weeding and watering. He raised some beautiful melons. A few days before they were ripe, he was coming home from town one evening with his brother Ira. Ira coaxed him to go into a neighbor’s lot and steal gooseberries. Eli was not very old, but he knew better than that, but he did it anyway. Shortly afterward, he went into his melon patch, thumped them and decided that they were ready to eat, or at least some of them were. The next Sunday he would give his family a melon treat. But alas! When Sunday came, he took a look at his melons and found only stomped vines and smashed melons. His heart was completely broken, but as he gazed in sorrow upon the wreck, the thought came to him: “What did you do a short time ago in your neighbor’s lot? Now you know how it feels to have your garden robbed.” And so Eli vowed that he would never do such a thing again. It was a lesson well learned and well remembered.
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An experience that exemplifies Eli’s feelings about fighting with his brothers happened when he was about fifteen. He and Herbert were working building a fence, when they got into an argument about something and Herbert called him a d_____ liar. Eli flew at him, grabbed him by the throat with his left hand and drew back his right fist to strike him, when something inside him seemed to say, “He is your brother.” Eli dropped both hands and stepped back, saying, “If you were not my brother, I would make you take that back or take a licking.” Herbert just stared at him in wonder.
Eli was just barely sixteen when his mother died. Just before she died, she called him to her and asked him to kiss her, which he did. It was the first and only time he remembered kissing her in life. He loved her very dearly and knew that she returned his love with interest, but he had never been much for kissing anyone. As she lay in her coffin, he kissed her again, and felt a terrible, sorrowful shock, for her lips were so cold.
Shortly after the funeral, Eli’s father said he had some work that needed to be done on Sunday in order to be prepared for the threshers who were coming on Monday. He offered to pay Eli $1.50 if he would do this work. He had never offered to pay Eli for any work before, so it came as a surprise, but Eli instantly answered, “No, I will not go and work on Sunday for $1.50. The work has to be done, and I will go and help you do it, but not for money.” He felt that if he did it for money he would be breaking the Sabbath, but that if he went for free, he would only be helping to “pull an ox out of the mire.”
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Now that his own mother was dead, Eli and his brothers and sisters lived with Abraham’s first wife, Elmira. They called her Aunt Elmira or Mother. Charlotte had left a young baby, and losing his mother’s milk was hard on him. The baby pined away in spite of all Elmira could do and died about three months after his mother.
Eli’s half-brother Ira had come home from working in the mines. It seemed to Eli that he and Edwin had to do all the chores and farm work of the winter, while Ira had a jolly good time spending his money in the town, smoking, drinking, dancing, etc. Eli’s sister Flavilla was now a young woman and did a lot of the heavy work around the house. One Sunday she stayed overnight with her sister Dora, and Ira was angry that she wasn’t there to wait on him. Eli was getting upset at the foul way Ira was speaking of his sister. Soon Ira said with an oath, that if she did not do better, he would drive her from home. At that, Eli jumped up and said, “Look here, Ira Day, when it comes to that, two can play at that game. I give you to understand that this is our home and that you are working here as a hired hand and you can not drive us away.”
“Oh,” said he, “You think you are so smart, don’t you. You have a little brother (referring to Herbert) who thinks he is smart too. I would like it for a breakfast spell to lick both of you every morning.” Eli went to the door and said, “If you want to lick me, just step outside here and do it now. I’ll soon show you that you can not do it – right now. You can’t come around here abusing my sister and get away with it so easy.” Flavilla told Eli that he had talked abusively to her all the way from town. Eli had never been so angry before in his life! Neither Eli’s father or Aunt Elmira would take any part in the argument. Flavilla made up her mind to leave home, and Eli was unable to talk her out of it.
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Not too long after this, Eli was working at a sawmill helping to saw up some timber with a rip saw. He was attempting to clean out the sawdust that was clogged in the saw, and raised his head a little too high and the saw scalped the left side of his head just above his ear. The scalp dropped down over his left eye and the blood spurted about six feet. A woman held his head on her lap while one of the men sewed up the wound. Then they bandaged his head and sent for the ox team to take him into town. Eli wanted to pray in secret. He said he would walk down the hill and wait for the wagon at the bottom. On the way down, he prayed sincerely to his Heavenly Father for a blessing at his hands. While waiting at the foot of the hill, his head began to bleed again, so he went to a cold spring to bathe his head, which only made it bleed worse.
On the way to town, Eli’s head kept bleeding worse and worse. They stopped two or three times and he got out and soaked it with cold water which made it bleed worse. Eli asked the man with him if he could not do something to stop the bleeding, but he said no. Eli was beginning to feel weak and faint. He did not know what to do, but knew that something must be done if he were to live. Finally he unpinned the outer bandage and took it off. He then asked his companion to stop and put it on again, drawing it as tight as possible. This soon stopped the bleeding.
Eli was taken to Dora’s home, and his father and Aunt Elmira soon came. Many others also came, among them an old quack doctor and an old Danish lady called the Danish Doctor Woman. The Danish woman told them that the wound should be opened up, cleaned, and broken bones taken out, but they did not listen to her and it was left wrapped up. Every night someone would sit up with Eli and put rags dipped in disinfectant on the wound. Dora dressed the wound every day. As the wound healed, a piece of his old black felt hat, sawdust, and pieces of bone all came out of it. Eli rested the rest of that summer and decided that he would like to go in the fall to the University of Deseret (now the University of Utah) to learn to be a school teacher. His father said that he thought he could support him in this.
Eli arranged to go to Salt Lake with Bishop Seely who was going there. Just as they were about ready to leave, Eli’s brother Ephraim came with the news that their father would not be able to support him after all. Both boys felt very bad about this. Eli studied hard and received a teaching diploma in June of 1876 – the first year that these diplomas were given at the University of Deseret. While at the university, Eli was given an assignment by an atheist teacher. He was to write about the origin of language according to the Darwin theory of evolution. Eli found that he could not write about something he did not believe, so he decided to write about the origin of language according to the Bible ideas. Everyone was much shocked at his audacity, but then they all admired him for his courage.
It was also during this year at the University that Eli had an experience that was very frightening. One afternoon he was walking down the sidewalk opposite the big ZCMI store, when there was a deafening explosion – the whole earth seemed to shake and the glass from the windows began falling almost on his head. Then came another explosion, followed by two more so close together they seemed to be one. Looking north of the city, Eli could see a huge volume of black smoke rising from Capitol Hill. He at once thought of the terrible volcano that buried the city of Pompeii, and he turned to run down the street to safety. But he heard someone shout, “The Arsenals have exploded!” The Arsenals were four log buildings on Capitol Hill in which powder and explosives belonging to the merchants of Salt Lake City were stored. Two young men who had been hunting in the vicinity were blown to bits in the explosions. A crowd of boys were playing baseball not so far away. The explosion knocked them flat, but miraculously they escaped unhurt. A lady was drawing water out of a well and a rock struck her in the back and killed her. One little boy had the lobe of an ear cut off with a rock. Many people thought the end of the world had come and began to pray mightily.
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After his graduation, Eli took a position teaching school in Mt. Pleasant. Eliza Jane Staker was hired to teach the younger students, and it was not long before they were married. Sometime later, Eli and his family moved to Fairview where he again taught school. It was there that he met and married his second wife, Elvira Euphrasia Cox, who was also a teacher.
When the laws were passed against polygamy, Eli and his wives had a hard time of it. Eli at one time spent six months in prison and often had to go into hiding. He would spend one week with Eliza and one week with Euphrasia whenever he could. They had many hard times. Euphrasia finally got a divorce from Eli – a situation that was undoubtedly hard on them both.
Eli taught piano lessons all his life and led the ward choir. He filled a six-month mission for the Church and spent his later years working in the Manti Temple. Eli Azariah Day died November 23, 1943 at the age of 87 and was buried in the Fairview Cemetery. His daughter Ellis wrote of him: “Mealtime there was a time of happiness. Father led conversations on subjects of interest to his family. Never were criticisms of others allowed in our discussions. Father told us stories of historic or scientific interest, but above all we were taught the Gospel of Jesus Christ. . . . During his last days upon earth which were spent in my home, he read several hours a day and did not use glasses. Because of his reading, he was a well-educated man. He could discuss science, history, literature, religion with equal effectiveness. Father was always kind, his discipline was firm but not harsh. He always encouraged the children of the neighborhood to come to our home and all were made welcome. His sense of humor made him an interesting companion. We often gathered around the old organ and sang while he played the accompaniment for us. . . . He was progressive, industrious, honest and charitable. His greatest desire was to set an example to his children and others that was worthy of emulation.”
