Martin and Jennie Gubler married in June 1913. During the first few years of their marriage Martin was away a lot of the time to earn a living herding sheep and cooking for shearing camps, while Jennie lived in Santa Clara taking care of their children and home. In 1921, they were one of the young families wanting to make the move onto the Santa Clara Bench and start farming their own land. They decided to live in Santa Clara while Martin built their adobe home. Once their home was ready, Martin and Jennie, along with their four children, moved to Ivins in September 1924. They were the ninth family to make the move from Santa Clara to Ivins. Martin had already started farming and harvested some of the crops they were growing on their Ivins property. He was also one of the men that labored hard to build canals and ditches to carry the irrigation water to their crops in extremely sandy soil that would continually wash and melt away. It must have been disheartening to see that all their hard work had been in vain. Many times they watched the water and the crops they had counted on to help see their families through the coming winter dry up in the scorching heat of late summer.
Their son Glen writes of his time in Ivins as a young boy, “My father made the adobes to construct the new home on the Ivins Bench. It was warm enough that we lived at first in the new home without windows. By our standards today it was avery humble home. It had three rooms consisting of two bedrooms, a large kitchen and a porch. In 1929 and the following years were tough. Through these depression years one didn’t work merely for money, but for anything you could get good use out of, such as produce, hay for the cow or whatever the need. During these depression years Mom and Dad had ninechildren to feed, clothe, and take care of. No toil, no matter how menial, was too great a sacrifice if it meant being able to provide for the family.
The family suffered for want of nourishing food. Bread and water gravy was what the meals consisted mainly of that summer until the cow that was with calf freshened, or until the garden and fruit trees began producing. Our family, like most families, was large and homes for the most part were small and modest. In the summertime we did alright, as the beds were all taken outside. The weather was unbearably hot and in order to sleep, it meant the beds were outside. It was usually short lived because so much of the time it never began cooling off until close to midnight.
At the crack of dawn the flies were so bad you couldn’t sleep any longer, so we got up. In the summer even the cook stove went outside, so meals could be prepared without heating the house. These were hard times for my parents, Dad going to St. George day after day looking for work. A fifty pound bag of flour at that time cost 75 cents and wages were not much more than $l.00/$1.50 a day. Mother related how through faith and prayer, their family was provided for. She told of a time, through those hard years, when Dad was out to the sheep herd. Sometimes he was gone for months at a time without being able to come home. It was during one of these times, that Mother had raised a hundred or so chicks, hoping to sell them later as fryers. Unfortunately, there wasn’t a market for them. She told of the morning when she set the children down to the very last food she had in the house. Because there was only enough for each child a scanty breakfast, she retired to her bedroom without eating and on her knees poured out her soul to her Heavenly Father, telling him of her circumstances. She had hardly risen from her knees when a knock came at the door. It was a nephew, Preston Hafen, who explained he had just been talking to Aunt Mata Ence and she had told him that Mom had some young pullets she’d like to sell. While he never had cash to pay her, he did have flour, sugar, shortening and other items that she was so in need of. This he traded for the chickens. To Mom, this was a direct answer to her prayer.”
Due to Martin's perseverance and Jennie's good management, things always seemed to work out. In November 1935,Martin was appointed to be a Judge of Election after living in Ivins for thirteen years. In the summer of 1938, they moved their family to St. George where he purchased a nice home, bought a small farm and worked at various jobs for the city. Martin was a great outdoorsman who, in his early years, loved and owned beautiful horses. During his retired years, he enjoyed gardening. He was a most generous good neighbor; especially was he kind and thoughtful of the widows. He found great joy in sharing his garden and in doing kind deeds for others. Jennie was a faithful, loving, wonderful mother and wife. She loved taking care of her home and family. Even though they experienced hard times and struggles most importantly they had a loving and happy long life together.
Written by Cherise Ence Spencer May 2023, Vol. 23 Issue 5 Ivins Newletter