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The Enterprise, White Salmon, WA., May 12, 1944, page 10

JOSEPH H. CLARIDGE PLAYED PROMINENT PART IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF THIS COUNTY

MY BROTHER JOE

I am glad that all my words of affection and goodwill were not left to be expressed after Joe's death. I loved and esteemed him from youth on. He had the affection of all his numerous brothers and sisters, and all of us who knew him. He had no enemies.
Joseph Hughs Claridge's life span came to a close on May 1, 1944. It commenced on March 12, 1870. In his seventy-fourth year he retained the spirit of youth to the end which came unexpectedly to him. Only the day before in my home he expressed the expectation of living to the age of his father, Samuel Claridge, who died at 91. And like his father, he passed quickly without long days of suffering. He scarcely had time to tell his loved ones goodbye.
He was born in a makeshift cabin in a community of a few such homes in the then territory of Nevada, a community called St. Joseph, made up of venturesome Mormons seeking to reclaim a land from the dead past for living posterity. A few roving bands of Indians and the wail of the coyotes is all that greeted these pioneers of the Muddy. From a sunbaked and barren earth they were to build for the future. Life was hard and their lot was drab. It was a fight for bare existence and required hard hands and strong hearts. They were men of iron and women of steel, indominatable and indefatigable, determined. It took such a breed to survive the in those remote wastes. A little grain, a few vegetables spared from the drought and grasshoppers supplied their meager table. They spun their wool from the backs of a few sheep and wove their own cloth, made their own clothes - homespun, they called it. They made their hats and shoes and almost everything they used. Such environments which stamped the childhood and youth of my brother with qualities which sustained him through life and endowed him with fortitude, individuality, self-reliance, honesty, integrity.
The son of pioneer parents, he himself was a covered wagon pioneer. He moved with his parents to Orderville, Utah, were very much the same sort of life was continued, only a few more to share the hardship with. There, these early men of the west bound themselves together in what was called the United Order, pooling all of their property and income, share and share alike, the better to survive. Then, with a couple of other families, the Claridges moved in covered wagons again over trackless deserts from Southern Utah to Southern Arizona to start all over again in another inhospitable country. But in the Gila valley, the family took root. It was still a grueling fight for existence in this new abode as before. But Joe was now a lad of 13, and, with his older brothers, helped his father clear a plot of land of misquet trees and sage brush, build and adobe house with thatched roof and dirt floor. A healthy, happy family grew and developed.
The only commerce with the outside world, the only means to learn a few dollars with which to buy the things they could not make themselves, was freighting in coke from a couple of points on the Southern Pacific railroad, Bowie Station and Wilcox, to Globe, Arizona, a mining camp 130 miles away, whence they would return loaded with copper bullion. Clouds of dust on the horizon as far as the eye could see gave evidence of the slow moving caravans, the life of the historic twenty mule teams. There was no pretense to road building or maintenance. Gutted with deep cuts for a roadbed, it was alternately a trail of dust and dirt when dried, a quagmire of mud when it rained. A campfire at night after the stock was cared for, a few blankets and a tarpolin for a bed, a pot of Arbuckle coffee, a pone cake baked in a Dutch oven covered with coals, fried potatoes and bacon or a mulligan, for a meal and up and on their way again by daybreak. The bleached bones of animals they drove, scattered along of the lonesome trail even to this day are the only monuments to the memory of these fighters. Where they fought and struggled in the 80's and 90's now runs a modern highway. Many a mule-skinner satisfied with his life the vengeance of the savage Apache when they were at their worst. The story of Geronimo and the Apache kid was written here. My brother Joe brought many a hard-earned dollar home to his father from this freight trail to help support a large and growing family. From such stern realities stern character is developed.
As I review of the early scenes of Joe Claridge's childhood and youth to show of what stuff this man was made in what a fire his soul was tempered. It was a tough and rugged life but made man of those who survived it. Joe survived it and develop those attributes which make for a subdued and sweet disposition, a deep insight into human nature, tolerant of the views of others. He had his own philosophy of life and content to let others have theirs. He had principles of living and honesty and truthfulness were innate in him. His word was his bond.
Joe is the first to go up the twelve brothers and sisters, the youngest of whom is 56. I am proud to be one of these and to have shared with my brothers and sisters the vicissitudes through which they passed and when the last of us is gone it may be said of us as I can so truthfully say of Joe that he wrought only good and earned all the love and affection bestowed upon him. And were I to carve his epitaph, it would be:

He had a tear for those who loved him,
A smile for those who ate,
And whatever woes betided him,
He had a heart for any fates.

-- A.J. Claridge, Portland.
May 2, 1944.

Those left to mourn his departure are his wife, Mary E. Claridge; nine children: T. Claridge, Gandy, Utah: Melba Bryce, Bryce, Arizona; Val. Parker, Long Beach, California; Arthur Claridge, Bingen; Shirl Claridge, White Salmon; Ellis Claridge, U.S. Army; Melverdo Lamoreaux, Mesa, Arizona; Cedric Claridge, Portland, and Streisa Carter, Phoenix, Arizona; twenty grandchildren, five brothers and six sisters.

CARD OF THANKS

We wish to express our sincere thanks and appreciation to our many friends and neighbors for their deeds of kindness also the beautiful floral offerings in our hour of sadness and bereavement in the loss of our husband and father, Joseph H. Claridge.

Mrs. M. E. Claridge,
Arthur Claridge and family,
Shirl Claridge and family,
Ellis Claridge and family,
Cedric Claridge.