Letter from Joel Martineau to Nephi Martineau

Letter to Nephi from his brother Joel Hills in Mexico
Colonia Juarez, Chih., MexicoMarch 22, 1942
Dear Brother Nephi:
Your good letter came like a ray of sunshine and I hope to receive more of them. I wish you many happy returns of your birthday. Mine will be soon. On June 12 I will be 75 and still do a lot of work. It is now 90 years since our parents were married and I wonder how many descendents have sprung from them. I raised but four kids but they have brought me 31 grandchildren and one great-grandchild.
Dear brother, I have thought of your lonesome life since Emma died and I surely rejoice with you if you can find another congenial companion to help pass away the long days and years that must be met. I have always felt that you was a choice spirit and am proud to own you as a brother.
Mother’s family have all turned out well, good Latter-day Saints. We have not been great financiers and acquired wealth but we have done better. We have lived honorable lives and set a worthy example to our associates.
I am engaged on a History of these Colonies that will occupy a year I suppose and then I hope to spend my days in the temple. It is a glorious work. I gave a great desire to write up a complete history of father’s life and it would be a great faith-promoting for his posterity to read. He always had a strong testimony and always taught us good principles. I have a copy of his life up to 1888 written by himself and printed in Tulliges Quarterly Magazine.
After we came to Mexico he worked a long time in Tucson land office but I do not know in which years, and then the Gila Bend Canal occupied him several years and later he took the survey contract in Uinta when you was with him but I have not that year either. He remained here in Juarez several years and then went to Salt Lake about 1906 I believe and did not return.
While living in Salt Lake he was often called on to administer to the sick and some remarkable healings resulted. Perhaps you can help me in gathering some of this data. I have here a little book he carried on the White Mountain Expedition into Nevada when Johnson’s army was on the way and Pres. Young sent this party to hunt out some place of refuge beyond the foe. He was historian of the expedition and Col. Dame was the head of it.
It is wonderful to be able to spend one’s declining years in temple work. Seems like heaven there. Looks like the Millenium will dawn as soon as this war is over for the wicked are killing the wicked as fast as they can and it will continue till the earth is cleansed from evil and then Satan will be bound because there will be no one on earth to do his work for him.
In regard to my ‘devil’ friends I can assure you I have scores of them and many I am very fond of. They are my countrymen for I have been a Mexican citizen ever since 1897, some forty-five years this fall. I have had a great desire to see a Martineau Family association formed to help gather the genealogical data for the temple work but seems that Albert is the only one who has done anything at it so far. I have quite a lot I got from Elvira of the Johnsons and there is a great deal of very interesting history in our past generations. I have a copy of a letter that Grandma Eliza Mears Martineau wrote to her parents more than a hundred years ago. Soon after her marriage to Grandfather they went with Uncle Peter down into Alabama on some kind of a contract and she describes the journey by train, steam boat, stage coach and horseback, any way to get there in those early days.
May the Lord bless you dear brother and your dear spouse when you get her.
Affectionately,Joel.