Betty Jean Nickle
A Life Story
1 Heritage
Fearing persecution at the hands of English Puritans, the predominantly Catholic Irish revolted against England in 1641. In 1642, civil war broke out in England, and eventually Oliver Cromwell and his forces achieved victory and established a republic called the Commonwealth of England. In 1649, Cromwell's forces crushed the Irish rebellion and granted land in Ireland to English Protestants.1
Among those who went from England to Ireland with Cromwell was Captain Oliver Nickle, an English Puritan. When the revolt ended, Oliver stayed in Ireland, where he lived as a single man until age sixty-five. He then married a Mrs. Young. The couple had three children, a daughter and two sons.
The youngest son, William, was born about 1649. He migrated to Scotland with his brother but later returned to Ireland, where he married. Twelve years later, his wife died, leaving him childless. At age fifty-eight, he remarried, and his wife bore him two children, both sons.2
William gave his youngest son, born in 1761, his own name. William II married Hannah Auld in Ireland on August 1, 1798. In 1801, William and Hannah emigrated to the United States and settled in Centre County, Pennsylvania, where William found work in the iron furnaces.3
By 1804, when their fourth child was born, William and Hannah had moved to Philadelphia. Their next two children's births occurred in Venango County in northwestern Pennsylvania. When Wilson, the seventh of their twelve children, was born in 1811, the family was living in Cumberland County in the south central part of the state, but by 1818, they were back in Centre County. They eventually returned to Venango County, where around 1830, they homesteaded a heavily timbered area east of what would eventually be called Nickleville. They built a two-room log home with a loft and cleared land for farming.4
Wilson Nickle would spend most of his life as a farmer. He left Venango County and married Esther Brown in Pittsburg. Esther, part Seneca Indian, had been born on a reservation in New York. When Esther bore William Wilson Nickle, the first of their nine children, the family was living in Venango County, but they eventually migrated west, first to Ohio, where they arrived by the 1840s, and then to Indiana, which they left in early 1864. In late fall 1864, they arrived in Bond County, Illinois, where they lived until 1879. Finally, the family traveled by wagon to Barry County, Missouri, where Wilson and Esther died.5
William Wilson Nickle moved west with his parents and family until they reached Indiana, where at age twenty-two he became caught up in the excitement of the civil war. In January 1860, he joined the Indiana Infantry Volunteers as a cook. When he was mustered out, he went back to Indiana and married Margaret Kidel. A few days after Margaret bore their first child, she died of "milk fever," and the baby died a few months later. Finding himself alone, he reenlisted with his company and served until September 1865. He then joined his parents' family in Bond County, Illinois, where he met Eliza Elma Jackson. Just two months after his discharge, he and Eliza married in Greenville, Illinois, Eliza's birthplace, which became their home.6
In 1879, William Wilson Nickle, his parents, and two brothers started for Texas, but when winter overtook them, they settled in Cassville, Barry County, Missouri. In the mid 1880s, William and Eliza moved southeast across the Missouri border to Eureka Springs, Arkansas, where William died in 1892 at the age of fifty-five. On August 4, 1890, just two year's before William died, the couple's last two children, twin boys, were born in Eureka Springs. They named the twins David Pearl and Daniel Earl.7
Daniel Earl Nickle's formal education took him through the elementary grades in Eureka Springs, where at age fourteen, he began working at the Basin Springs Hotel. Later, he moved to Springfield, Missouri, where he worked as a night clerk in the Marquette Hotel and met Lena Marie Augusta Dahlman.8
Lena was born on November 10, 1892, in Billings, Christian County, Missouri, the sixth child of Henry Dahlman, Jr., and Ottillie Pauline Lehn. Her parents were German immigrants, and Lena spoke German in her home during much of her youth. She learned English while attending elementary school, the only formal education she received. As a young teenager, she moved to Springfield, Missouri, to work and live with her sister. In Springfield, she met Daniel Nickle.9
On July 16, 1916, three months after Daniel and Lena began their courtship, they were married by David A. Abbott, an elder in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, known more commonly as the Mormon Church, an institution to which neither Dan nor Lena then belonged but which would ultimately have a powerful effect on their lives.10
Francis Clement Nickle, one of Dan's older brothers, introduced them to the church. A deeply religious man, Clem, as he was called, had joined the Methodists at age fifteen but was disappointed not to be baptized by immersion. At age seventeen, he raised more money to build a new Methodist church than anyone else on the building committee. At eighteen, he became superintendent of the Methodist Sunday school and leader of youth prayer meetings held each Wednesday evening.
One evening after the prayer meeting, several of the youth had left the building and began to sing "Skip to My Lou." A cheerful man by nature, Clem joined in with them. The stern minister and some of his more austere congregants felt disgraced that youth should sing a party song on their way home from church. To prevent further jollity, they abolished the youth prayer meetings, reprimanded Clem, and dismissed him as Sunday school superintendent.
Sometime later, a group of boys gathered at the depot as Clem played his harmonica. One started dancing a jig, and the others laughed and called for more. Clem played another song or two as the boy danced. The more somber members of his congregation found this behavior reprehensible, and Clem soon found himself on trial before the church. He prayed as requested to open the trial, leading one elderly woman to protest, "I think we old heads should be ashamed of ourselves. A boy who can pray as Clem has today just can't be very bad." Others did not agree, however, and they excommunicated Clem from the church. When the decision came down, Clem's mother arose and asked that her name be taken from the records too.11
About the time the church expelled Clem, a stranger received permission to preach in the Methodist church. He continued for several nights while many of the older members listened attentively, acknowledging their approval with occasional shouts of "Hallelujah!" One evening, however, the stranger spoke of Joseph Smith, the Mormon prophet, and the volatile congregation erupted. A ninety-two-year-old man who had helped expel the Mormons from Missouri in his youth exclaimed, "Let me out. I'll run home and get my gun. I've shot at 'em once; I'll shoot at 'em again." The speaker fled the community for his safety.12
Still concerned about the mode of his earlier baptism, Clem entered the Baptist Church by immersion. In his new church, he met Nellie Rhoades, whom he soon married. Four days after their marriage in 1895, Clem was outside gathering kindling when a man approached him. "He was riding a red mule," Clem would later recall, "and his hair was exceedingly white. His eyes were very blue and his complexion so fair that it seemed almost transparent." The stranger asked to spend the night.
"But we have only one bed," Clem answered, "and even that is not a very good one."
"I can sit in a chair," replied the visitor, "and if you let me stay, I will give you a present that you will cherish all the days of your life. But if you don't let me stay, you will regret it as long as you live."
Clem and Nellie had planned to spend the evening with her brother Bill. Clem told the stranger about a hospitable neighbor who could make him comfortable. "I know you can stay there," he added, "or I would not think of sending you on. It is very inconvenient for us to change our plans now."
Clem left the visitor and went indoors. When he told Nellie about the man and his request, Nellie said, "Oh, why didn't you let him stay? I wouldn't mind. We can go to Bill's some other time. Go tell him to come in." Clem immediately went out to invite the man inside, but he had disappeared, even though it was impossible for him to have gotten out of sight in so short a time. Clem later learned the man had not called on the neighbor he recommended, nor had anyone else in the region seen him. For the rest of his life, Clem regretted having turned away the stranger, whom he later became convinced was either John the Revelator, the New Testament apostle, or one of the Three Nephites, Book of Mormon apostles promised to lived until Christ's Second Coming.13
An ardent student of the Bible, Clem grew dissatisfied with the Baptists. For years, he and Nellie studied the scriptures and attended different churches but did not feel they had found the truth. During this period, Clem became so ill that some thought he would die. In the seclusion of a cedar grove, the sick man implored God to restore his health and lead him to the true church, promising to dedicate his life to it. Clem eventually got well and with his family continued praying for direction to the true church.14
Then one day in 1906, two men visited Clem and Nellie in Rogers, Arkansas. "We are missionaries representing The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints," they said, introducing themselves.
"The Church of Jesus Christ," echoed Clem. "That's a beautiful name, but how strange I have never heard of it before."
"We are better known to the world as Mormons," they explained.
"Oh, Mormons," Clem replied. "Yes, I know a lot about the Mormons." What Clem had been led to believe about Mormons was less than positive, but the missionaries seemed so clean and sincere he heard them out. As he listened and studied, Clem recognized in their message the truth he had long been seeking.
"Nellie," said Clem to his wife. "I'm going to see Mother. I know that she will be happy to know the truth is really on the earth." Nellie agreed, and lacking other means of conveyance, Clem walked twenty miles to his mother's home. "Mother," he announced when he arrived, "I've come to tell you something glorious and beautiful. I have found the true church of Jesus Christ; one that bears His name and teaches His doctrines. It even has the same organization that He had in His church."
"Where is it, son?" she answered. "Tell me quick."
When he mentioned the word "Mormon," she wept and warned him, "Don't ever let the Mormons into your home again, Clem."15
For eight years after first meeting the missionaries, Clem and Nellie continued to study Mormonism. They moved from Arkansas to Springfield, Missouri, and then to Arkansas again, this time to Eureka Springs. One day, two Mormon missionaries entered the town, checked into a hotel, and went out to preach. Their presence infuriated local bigots, who began organizing to drive them out. One missionary sought help from a doctor for an eye infection. Recognizing the new patient as a Mormon, the doctor drew a revolver and ordered, "Get down those stairs or you'll have to be carried down." When the missionaries returned to the hotel, they found their belongings on the porch.
Hearing the uproar, Clem sought out the missionaries and invited them to stay at his house. A mob soon sent Clem a message threatening retribution if he did not expel the Mormons. "You cannot take them as long as I am alive," he replied. The Latter-day Saint elders volunteered to leave for the family's safety, but Clem and Nellie insisted they stay. The mob never appeared.16
Eventually, persecution became so intense, however, that Clem, Nellie, and their children left Eureka Springs, practically giving away their beautiful home. After two or three years, they ventured moving back into the vicinity. After they had moved back, Nellie one day said to her husband, "Clem, we believe the Mormons are right, don't we?"
"Yes," he acknowledged. "I surely do. Don't you?"
"Then why," she replied, "don't we get baptized?"
"Well, dear," he said, "you know we would have to stand absolutely alone. My folks are all opposed to it and your folks too, while not interested in religion, are firmly against the Mormons."
"Well," Nellie asked, "we can stand alone, can't we, for what we know to be true?"
"You know, too," Clem said, "that we cannot be good Latter-day Saints unless we keep the Word of Wisdom." The Word of Wisdom, the Latter-day Saint health code, forbade the use of tobacco and coffee. Clem had smoked for twenty years, and Nellie suffered intense headaches without her coffee.
"I can give up my coffee," she said, "if you can give up your tobacco."
Having earlier committed to accept the truth if God would help them find it, they resolved to be baptized. From their previous experience, they knew it would be intolerable to remain near Eureka Springs after joining the church. So in 1914, they spent seventeen days traveling over rough roads to reach Barney, Arkansas, where a small LDS branch had been organized. There they entered the waters of baptism and became members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
When he had decided to join the Mormons, Clem thought it would be best to move far enough away from his family that they would not learn of his decision. Once he joined, however, a spirit of missionary work engulfed him, and he soon found himself back in Springfield, Missouri, preaching to friends and family members. Most of his relatives refused his message, and he especially agonized over why his mother could not see the truth of what he taught.17
One evening, he knelt in his bedroom, praying for strength to declare the gospel with convincing power. His eldest daughter later recalled a vision he had of early Latter-day Saint prophet Brigham Young. "Suddenly the room became light," she explained, "and Brigham Young appeared before him, telling him that he had indeed accepted the true Gospel of Jesus Christ and promised him that if he would be faithful he would soon receive the Priesthood, and that not only would his mother accept the truth, but that he would be instrumental in bringing all his father's household into the Church."18
Thereafter Clem took every opportunity to preach to his family members and others. At times, his mother seemed to believe his message. At other times, she rejected it and grew depressed. Eventually, she got sick and became comatose. For a long time, she could not speak to anyone. On October 9, 1917, she revived and called her nine living children to her side. When they arrived, she said, "Clem, I'm going, and I want you to make me one promise before I go."
Loving his mother dearly, but knowing her hostility toward his church and unable in good conscience to forsake his faith, Clem prayed silently and answered, "Mother, I will promise you anything that is within the bounds of reason."
"Clem," she importuned, "promise me that you will go to the temple and do the work for your father and me, and that you will teach the gospel as you understand it to all your brothers and sisters." Her words reflected the belief that families for whom sealing ceremonies are performed in Latter-day Saint temples will live together forever if worthy.
"With all the power God will give me, Mother dear," Clem committed, "I will."
As shocked as Clem was overjoyed, other family members felt their mother might not be in her right senses. Clem's sister Emma asked, "Mother, you don't mean that you want us to be Mormons, do you?"
"Yes," she answered, "I mean that. Now I know that Clem has accepted the truth. I have seen into the eternities. I cannot talk more now, for I must go. But," she said, pointing, "Clem there can talk, and he can teach you the way." With that message, she died.
The children buried their mother next to their father in Eureka Springs. Throngs attended the funeral, and after a Protestant minister delivered a sermon, Clem asked to speak. Despite the persecution he had earlier encountered in the town, Clem felt impressed to preach the gospel he had embraced. The crowd received his message well, and he later baptized twenty-two persons in the area.19
Clem's brother Sullivan had also joined the LDS Church in 1915. Just a few weeks after their mother's death, their brother Preston also joined. The next year, their sister Estella was baptized. Their brother Daniel, influenced by Clem and others, had agreed to be married by a Latter-day Saint missionary just a year before their mother's death but despite her dying words did not immediately join the church. The parents of Dan's wife, Lena, had been bitter about having their daughter's marriage performed by a Mormon elder and felt she had not been legally married.20
Shortly after Dan and Lena were married, a Mormon elder gave them a copy of the Book of Mormon, but Lena adamantly declared she would never become a Mormon. LDS missionaries continued to call upon the couple and hold meetings in their home, but Dan and Lena remained members of the Baptist Church.21
Dan and Lena had their first child, Evelyn Francis, in 1917, and their second, Gladys Helen, in 1919. When their first boy, Paul Preston, arrived in April 1921, he had a congenital heart defect that took his life six months later. One month before the boy died, his parents felt favorable enough toward the LDS Church to allow the president of its Central States Mission, Samuel O. Bennion, to give the baby a name and blessing.22
Dan and Lena's oldest child, Evelyn, was four years old when her brother died. His death affected her so strongly that when other memories of early childhood faded, Paul Preston's death remained indelibly etched in her consciousness. Years later, she would recall, "My first memory was on a cold October night when I was awaken[ed] from my sleep by lights and sobs coming from the kitchen. Getting up I found mother holding . . . Paul Preston. Dad was sitting at the kitchen table—his head on his arms and sobbing. That is all I remember but their baby, Paul Preston, died that morning."23
When Paul Preston died, Lena felt she had lost her son forever. Dan's brother Clem visited the grieving couple and taught them the Latter-day Saint belief that children and parents can live together forever if they are sealed together by priesthood authority. The teaching impressed Dan and Lena, but they did not immediately join the church. Because Dan had family members in the LDS Church, it would have been easier for him to join than for Lena, whose family still felt bitter towards it.24
In June 1922, Lena bore her fourth child, Lorene Isabelle, who helped fill the void created in the family when Paul Preston died. Still, the thoughts of losing little Paul weighed heavily on his parents, and in October 1922, exactly one year after his death, Lena wrote and published the following verses in the Springfield newspaper:
In the graveyard softly sleeping,
Where the flowers gently wave
Lies the one we love so dearly,
In his silent lonely grave.
Peaceful be your sleep, dear little Paul.
'Tis sweet to breathe your name,
In life we loved you dearly,
In death we do the same.
Just one year ago you left us,
How we miss you, Paul, dear.
And remember all your sweetness,
As we drop a silent tear.
Sadly missed by father, mother and little sisters.25
Missing her little boy so deeply, Lena wanted to have him and all her family members sealed to her for eternity as taught by the Latter-day Saints.26
When their fourth child, Lorene, was still a baby, Dan and Lena moved briefly to California, where other members of the Nickle clan also migrated. While the family was in California, Lena showed a copy of the Book of Mormon to the minister of the Baptist Church she attended, and he told her the book was of the devil and that she should not waste her time reading it. Lena followed her minister's advice, and for a time the book went back on the bookshelf.27
In 1923 while the family was still in California, an accident nearly cost Lena and her infant daughter their lives and undoubtedly made Lena think once again of the thin line separating life from death. Lena and Lorene were riding in an automobile driven by Lena's nephew when the car went over an embankment. Lena and the baby were both pinned underneath the vehicle and knocked unconscious, but they survived and eventually recovered.28
Dan, Lena, and their children moved back to Springfield, Missouri, where their four children had been born and where five others would yet be. In June 1924, child number five arrived, and Dan and Lena named her Nora Jane Nickle. Then on August 14, 1926, Lena delivered child number six, a boy whom they named LeRoy Earl. The boy's birth undoubtedly aroused the parents' memories of their earlier son's birth and death and perhaps led them to reflect on Latter-day Saint teachings about the purpose and meaning of life and the possibility for families to live together after death if joined by priesthood authority. Yet however Dan and Lena felt about joining the Latter-day Saints, they still faced the opposition of Lena's parents.
Around this same period, however, Lena had a dream that removed whatever doubts lingered about joining the Latter-day Saints. In the New Testament, John the Revelator writes, "And I saw another angel fly in the midst of heaven, having the everlasting gospel to preach unto them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and kindred, and tongue, and people." Latter-day Saints believe the angel was Moroni, the heavenly messenger who visited LDS Prophet Joseph Smith and delivered to him the gold plates from which the Book of Mormon was translated. In her dream, Lena saw an angel flying above Salt Lake City, headquarters of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.29
On October 30, 1926, just a few weeks after LeRoy Earl was born, his uncle Clem baptized Dan and Lena in a lake in Springfield, Missouri. The weather was so cold that a thin sheet of ice had formed on the lake and had to be broken to perform the baptism.30 That afternoon, the Springfield session of the Southwest Missouri conference was held at 1609½ Boonville Avenue in Springfield, where the Church members had met for some time, though they were planning a new meetinghouse. Presiding at the conference was Elder George F. Richards, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.
The roughly sixty souls who attended the meeting began by singing the favorite LDS hymn Come, Come, Ye Saints, one verse of which described how those who die live beyond the grave. Dan's brother Clem then offered the opening prayer. After another hymn, Lo! The Mighty God Appearing, Dan, Lena, and one other person were confirmed members of the Church by Elder Richards. Several persons gave talks, including Elder Richards and mission president Samuel O. Bennion. Among the themes advanced in the talks were the preexistence and future existence of man, themes reflected also in the closing hymn, O My Father. The meeting ended with a prayer by the branch president.31
On November 7, the Springfield branch met at their regular meeting place on Boonville Avenue for their monthly fast and testimony meeting. During the meeting, six children were blessed, among whom were children of Dan and Lena. Twenty-five of the forty persons present bore testimony of their faith, including Dan and Lena, who must have felt right at home since many of those who rose to speak were their relatives. The closing hymn, Now Let Us Rejoice, probably reflected the joy Dan and Lena felt on the occasion.32
The following month during fast and testimony meeting, the gregarious Dan once again rose to bear his testimony.33 The week after that, he gave a talk in church.34 Then for a time, his name disappeared from the minutes kept of church meetings by clerks. Over the next nearly five years, he and Lena would hold positions in the church's auxiliaries35 and participate at least somewhat in church meetings.36 But Dan did not receive the priesthood as Latter-day Saint men ordinarily do after joining the church, and his children who received priesthood ordinances and blessings received them from other men.37
Just as the death of a son and the near loss of a daughter had earlier helped influence them to join the church, it would be the loss of their only other son and the near death of another daughter that would spur them into the full church activity that marked the rest of their lives. The second daughter who nearly died would be the seventh of nine children eventually born to Dan and Lena, and the first born to them after they joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Her birth would not be an easy one.
Notes
1. World Book Encyclopedia, s.v. "Ireland" and "Cromwell, Oliver."
3. Nickle Family History (1981), 2; Margaret T. Morse to Jane Nickle, July 30, 1952, quoting History of Venango County (Chicago: Brown, Runk & Co., 1890), 1111; Lorna J. Nickle, William Nickle and Hannah Auld Family (1961).
8. Nickle Family History (1981), 107; "My Father's Story," in BJNT Autobiography (1948), p. 13.
9. Nickle Family History (1981), 111.
12. Jackson, "Portraits of the Gospel," p. 3.
14. Jackson, "Portraits of the Gospel," p. 2.
15. Jackson, "Portraits of the Gospel," p. 3.
16. Jackson, "Portraits of the Gospel," p. 4.
17. Jackson, "Portraits of the Gospel," pp. 4-5.
18. Jackson, "Portraits of the Gospel," pp. 5-6.
21. Lena Nickle Biographical Sketch.
24. Lena Nickle Biographical Sketch.
26. Lena Nickle, Biographical Sketch.
27. Lena Nickle, Biographical Sketch.
"When we first heard of the accident, before our family came home, and we still had no idea of how serious things were, some of the cousins, June, Dan, Martha Ruth, and then Gladys, my sisters, crawled under one of the porches of one of the houses, we knelled [sic] down and we prayed for our families, that they would all come back home safe. They finally regained all of their health from this accident.
"I especailly remember about us having the prayer amd [sic] losing the eggs.
. . . .
"We only lived in California for a very brief period of time and we were then back in Springfield for our schooling."
29. Lena Nickle Biographical Sketch; Rev. 14:6; D&C 128:20, 133:36.
31. Springfield Branch Minutes, LR 8650/11, vol. 1s, pp. 208-9, HDC.
33. Springfield Branch Minutes, LR 8650/11, vol. 1s, p. 217.
34. Springfield Branch Minutes, LR 8650/11, vol. 1s, p. 219.
Copyright © 1995, 2005, by Richard Eyring Turley Jr. All Rights Reserved.