The Ellsworth Family

One thousand ostriches

Before the Ellsworths entered this family story through a 1940 marriage, they were already Arizona legends. Louis Ellsworth, born in Salt Lake City in 1865, had moved to the East Valley and built one of Arizona's largest ostrich operations: more than a thousand birds. By 1880, at the age of 15, Louis moved with his family to Show Low, Arizona, arriving on October 26, 1880, with a caravan of seven wagons and forty to fifty loose cattle and horses. He married Josephine Louvina Crismon on February 20, 1889, in Lehi, Arizona Territory. They had eleven children: seven girls and four boys, including Earl Ellsworth, born on February 11, 1903.

Louis Ellsworth was one of the first cotton producers in Arizona and a large-scale ostrich famer. At the height of his partnership with Dr. A.J. Chandler, Louis managed more than one thousand birds and exhibited them at the Chicago World's Fair.

Louis's life tragically ended on July 23, 1925, at the age of 59. While riding in a car near Whiteriver, Navajo County, Arizona, the vehicle went too close to the edge of the road, the roadway gave way, and the car hurtled about 100 feet down the hillside, turning over several times. He died of a fractured skull and shock. Josephine survived him by over two decades, passing away from coronary heart disease on January 23, 1948, at the age of 70. Both are buried in the Mesa Cemetery.

In the early 1900s, ostrich feathers were the most expensive commodity by weight in the fashion industry, used in hats, boas, and stage costumes across Europe and America. Arizona's hot, dry climate was ideal for raising the birds, and the Salt River Valley became one of the world's major ostrich-farming regions. Louis rode that wave.

Mormon pioneers in the East Valley

The Ellsworths were among the early LDS colonists in Arizona. One branch helped found communities in the White Mountains around Show Low in the 1890s. Another, Louis's branch, settled in the Gila Valley and Queen Creek area near Mesa.

The original Ellsworth: Edmund Lovell (1819-1893)

Building the Town

Through historical journals and family accounts, the Ellsworths' legacy in Mesa transitioned from the agricultural boom of ostrich feathers to civil service and steady leadership. They were foundational figures in Maricopa County, helping shape the region from a dusty outpost into the sprawling metropolis it is today.

The family's influence extended deeply into civic life and state politics. Most notably, Donald Delos Ellsworth (1931–2013) served two terms in the Arizona House of Representatives (acting as majority whip) and two terms in the Arizona Senate. Later in his career, he served as chief of staff to U.S. Senator Barry Goldwater in Washington, D.C., cementing the Ellsworth name within the highest echelons of Arizona's political history.

This spirit of public service permeated the family. Earl Ellsworth, born in Mesa in 1903, would become a farmer and the father of Earlene Ellsworth. Before the ostrich feathers and the cotton gins, the Ellsworth name was already written into the founding story of the LDS migration west. Edmund Lovell Ellsworth was born on July 1, 1819, in Paris, Oneida County, New York. His father Jonathan died the year Edmund was born, and his mother Sarah Gallea was dispossessed of all the family property by Jonathan's brother, who claimed a verbal will. Sarah eventually converted to the LDS faith around 1839 and moved the family to Nauvoo, Illinois. Edmund and his sister Charlotte were both baptized in 1841.

Edmund was a polygamist with four wives and forty-two children, with roughly 252 grandchildren and an estimated 1,500 descendants in the following generation. His most significant distinction was leadership: in 1856, at the age of thirty-seven, Edmund captained the first handcart company of 280 pioneers, 56 handcarts, and 3 wagons from Iowa City, Iowa, to the Salt Lake Valley. They departed June 9 and arrived September 26, walking roughly 1,300 miles in 109 days. Brigham Young himself led a welcoming committee with the Nauvoo Brass Band to greet them at the valley's mouth.

The connection to Young was personal. Edmund had married Elizabeth Young, Brigham's eldest daughter (by his first wife Miriam Works), in Nauvoo on July 10, 1842. Elizabeth did not travel with the handcart company; she had arrived in Salt Lake in 1847 with Daniel Spencer's second company.

His other roles included:

• Alderman on the Salt Lake City Council
• Major in the Nauvoo Legion
• Missionary to England (1854-1856)
• Superintendent of road construction and the Utah Central Railroad
• Worker at the Nauvoo Temple Rock Quarry
• Musician in brass bands at Nauvoo and Salt Lake City
• Actor at the Salt Lake Theatre

Edmund died on December 29, 1893, in Show Low, Arizona. He was buried at Adair Cemetery.