Isaac Fielding Langford

Isaac Fielding Langford

Isaac & Marilla

Isaac & Laurena

Dalley Family

Isaac Fielding Langford was the 6th child of James Harvey Langford, Sr. and Mary Caroline Turnbaugh. He married Marilla Dalley on February 16, 1887, and they lived in Summit, Iron County, Utah, where Isaac Fielding worked as a farmer. Isaac Fielding and Marilla had four children when his wife died in 1893, and three years later he married Marilla's niece, Laurena Dalley, on June 3, 1896. They lived in Summit for about four years, and then, in the Spring of 1901, Isaac, Laurena, the four children from his first marriage and his new daughter, Martha, moved to the Mormon community of Colonia Oaxaca in Senora in northern Mexico where Isaac Fielding thought he would have better employment. Isaac Fielding had a weak heart from having rheumatic fever as a child, and he did not prosper at the hard labor of farming. Oaxaca had been built as a refuge for polygamous families trying to stay together without abandoning either wife or children after polygamy was made illegal by U.S. statehood. Several Langford families had moved to Oaxaca to keep their families together.

While living in Oaxaca, Isaac Fielding and Laurena had two more children (Anna Mae and Moroni Bertren). In 1909, after eight years in Mexico, Isaac Fielding, Laurena, and the seven children moved back to Summit. Three years later, Isaac Fielding Langford died. The four children from his marriage to Marilla Dalley moved to Nevada and stayed with Langford relatives. His wife, Laurena and her three children moved to the nearby town of Cedar City where she hoped to provide for her family. Few occupations were open to women at that time, but she had a house built near the local college (later purchased by Wilford Webster (Dick) Leigh and rented rooms and provided meals to students, as "boarders".

From Left to right: Laurena Langford, Anna Mae Langford,
Moroni Bertren Langford, Martha Laurena Langford, and Isaac Fielding Langford

Laurena was an energetic cook and enjoyed returning to the Dalley orchards to buy "Alberta peaches" or other fruit to be boiled and preserved in quart bottles. She was always known as a hard worker who tolerated no nonsense from anyone, and apparently she never considered remarriage. She bought an insurance policy to pay for her burial so as "not to be a burden on my children." She faithfully paid each premium, often sending a grandchild to the post office to mail it on time. but after she died, happily independent, the life insurance company was found to be a fraud, and her children divided the burial costs, feeling glad their mother didn't know about the fraud.

On January 22, 1957 Clarence Langford wrote to his cousin, Martha Langford Jones, and described the country around Oaxaca and the kilns that were made by her father, Isaac Fielding Langford. He said the kilns were still standing when he visited Oaxaca in 1927. On March 2, 1957 Clarence wrote another letter to Martha, and he described the remains of the brick house that Isaac Fielding Langford had built.

Ida-Rose Langford Hall, in her Langford Book, gives interesting information about Isaac Fielding Langford (p. 216).