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STALWARTS SOUTH OF THE BORDER, NELLE HATCH & CARMON HARDY, page 793-796. PETER COTTON WOOD (1852-1929)....Peter Cotton Wood, son of Daniel Wood, was born July 4, 1852 in Woods Cross, Davis County, Utah and went to school in Salt Lake City. Born into a musical family, he became part of the first choir and also the first band in the small community and at a very early age composed musical numbers, writing both the words and the music for his compositions. He also wrote poetry and arranged programs and took part in them. Of all this, however, gardening was his first love....¶At the age of eighteen, he was ordained a Seventy and went on a mission to Canada with his father, Daniel Wood. He met and married Launa Pace in Utah about the year 1872. They became parents of six children, every one of whom died within two weeks from a diphtheria epidemic....¶He acquired extensive acres of land and a herd of livestock but, when a call came to help settle Arizona, he sold it all and settled near where Snowflake is now located. There he endured the hardships of pioneering on a remote frontier. While at Snowflake he met and married Lucy Jane Flake and with her and the now childless Luana they soon had all the necessities and some of the comforts of life. His love of gardening and seeing things grow, his joy in surrounding himself with the beauty and necessities from what he grew, soon produced a home that made them seem prosperous and kept them happy. When the call came to take his families to Mexico, he gathered seed, roots, roses, and cuttings of choice flowers and trees, to take with him to the foreign land....¶He joined a group of exiles leaving the United States for the same reason, and landed in Colonia Juarez on March 21, 1889. He chose a lot in Colonia Juarez on the east bank of the Piedras Verdes River. There he built a concrete home in which his families lived comfortably and happily. In the beginning, like most others, he had a hard time making ends meet. But he worked hard and his wives were fugal and thrifty. Together they made every possible use of what advantages were available. His love of the soil and what he could make it produce induced him to build two ponds to conserve his water turns, and catch waste water. With this water supply, he planted a garden, trees, and the plants, shrubs, and roses he had brought with him. Soon his walls were covered with climbing berries, roses, honeysuckle, and other vines. His street was lined with shade trees, his garden was filled with vegetables to supply his family needs and much to sell, and he had trees to give the people of the community. The high quality of his vegetables proved what love for gardening can do....¶His green thumb service went beyond the people of Colonia Juarez. He donated and planted the trees in the plaza in Casas Grandes and lined the street around it with shade trees, mostly poplar. Peter built a lime kiln, made the lime that went into the walls of his own concrete homes, and helped build other homes in town as well. The walls of some of these homes still stand today....¶Peter's inherent love for music was passed onto his family, and with Launa's beautiful voice he was soon able to create a Wood Orchestra patterned after his father's Wood Band in Woods Cross where he played the flute. He taught his daughter to chord on the organ for the tunes he made. A son learned to play the guitar, another to play the harmonica and still another son to play his beloved flute. He taught himself to play the violin after he was fifty years of age, and with these instruments tuned and spiritedly led by him, the music he produced recalled his boyhood band and choir days in Wood Cross, even if it didn't rival it....¶Peter and his flute became legendary. He played it for celebrations, programs, for parties, for his own comfort and amusement, and for all the dances. Sometimes he had only the organ to accompany him. Other times he had a guitar of violin or both. But whether he played alone or with others, Peter and his flute were always there. With the first tremolo that lifted from his flute, as his lips caressingly whispered into it, dancers were on the floor ready to take the tempo he set, to dance the schottische, the quadrille or a reel, as his musical spell dictated. No dance was complete without Peter and his flute. In later life, he contrived a neck bad to hold the harmonic in place, and while his lips and tongue coaxed music from it's reeds, his fingers would simultaneously strum the guitar. This one-man band made the same dance-inducing music as his flute, both of which paid tribute to his talent and his love of sharing it with others....¶Peter and Launa were a part of the first choir and religiously attended the weekly rehearsals held by the conductor, John J. Walser. They both capably participated in the concerts, cantatas and operas he produced. In the early days, they trundled the baby to these functions in a wheelbarrow so that Jane could attend also. They looked upon these walks of ten blocks as an accepted part of life....¶Peter's home was always filled to capacity at Conference time, his yard and stable filled with wagons and teams, his table loaded with good food and a hearty welcome for all. His wives, Launa and Jane, were excellent cooks. They worked together beautifully because they loved each other. Launa expended the love for her lost children on those of Jane. She not only helped in raising them but became a second mother to them, which made a united and loving family. Something went out of all their lives when Launa sickened and died. She left so many vacant spots that only she could fill. She was such an integral part of Peter's musical life that his over for and interest in that art could easily have died, too. Instead, he let her continue to live in the music he enjoyed and produced....¶Being the water-master for years, Peter made the necessary rounds, took care of the ditches, the head gates, and the water in them. He could be seen walking or riding a horse with a shovel over his shoulder, checking to make sure there were no leaky head-gates and that users both took and released the water on time. Water to him was so precious that not a drop should be wasted. In this capacity, he represented the community on Casas Grandes. Old-Times way that with him in this work there was never any trouble. Besides this his team was always ready to take General Authorities into the mountains whenever it was necessary....¶Peter was a great friend to the Mexican people. He used to say, "If you make one friend of an Indian, he will make you a hundred more. Or if you make one enemy, he'll make you a hundred more enemies." It was the same he said, with the Mexican people....¶Peter was the town dentist for years, and never broke a tooth. With no anesthesia to deaden the painful yank, he had methods all his own to not only quiet the fears of the sufferer but to get his mind on something besides the menacing forceps he often tried to hide. "Just let Uncle Pete get a look at that fellow that kept you awake all night, while you just think of a white horse without any tail." If that didn't provoke a smile, he had other antics that would. Before the patient was aware of it, the forceps were firly in place and the tooth was out....¶Peter, like his father, was spiritual-minded and early formed the habit of taking his problems to the Lord. He never failed to get his answer, often through dreams. Many problems were solved through following instructions given in dreams and important moves in his life were dictated by what he had seen or been told in a dream. The following are typical: While on his mission in Arizona, he returned to his homesteads in Woods Cross to sell out. He received an offer of $1500 cash but hesitated because the offer had come from a gentile. In answer to an earnest inquiry of the Lord, he was told to deal with the man. He did, received the money, and returned to his mission. On another occasion he was told by a heavenly messenger, surrounded by a bright light, "Go straight for Mexico!" This occurred after he had prayerfully asked for guidance, and after he had arranged to move to Beaver. "Go by all means," his Bishop said when he reported his dreams. "And God bless you!"....¶On the way to Mexico, in company with John McNeil, he was shown in a dream a way to cross the swollen Gila River, in which a large ox appeared by his team and guided them moving from side to side so quickly that he seemed intelligent. Next morning he told McNeil he was going up the river. "There's no crossing there," said McNeil. But Peter was impressed to go. Soon an Indian was riding by their side leading him toward San Carlos on the other side of the river. He later led his team and wagon safely across, going from side to side of his team, guiding them as the ox had done in his dream. McNeil followed and they soon were safely across and on their way....¶He was a hard working man yet he took time each day to read a newspaper, or something good, most often the scriptures. And every day he played one or all of the instrument he loved. He could pick out a tune on any instrument he picked up....¶Fifteen of his descendants have spent more than twenty-five years as missionaries to the Mexican people. Two of his descendants have spent two years working in the Andes Mission. One son filled three Stake Mission calls among the Spanish-speaking people in the colonies. These are some of the results that have flowed from his dreams concerning where he should move his family....¶He died November 9, 1929 in Colonia Dublan, and was buried in the eastern cemetery in Colonia Juarez....¶One of the climbing roses he brought to the country is yet blooming in the yards of his sons Enos and Lee. By Nelle Spilsbury Hatch, call # LAT.MA, 972.1, D3hn