Naomi Roxanna LeBaron

Naomi Roxanna LeBaron with husband, James Sawyer Holman

Naomi Roxanna LeBaron

Naomi Roxanna LeBaron 

Contributed By Melvin J Johnson · 13 October 2013

Half-Sister to Melissa Bloomfield LeBaron – Benjamin Johnson’s First Wife

Mother of Harriet Naomi Holman, Sarah Melissa Holman and Susan Adeline Holman – 

Three of BF Johnson’s wives

Written by Patti Henry Nielson

Naomi Roxanna LeBaron was of noble French descent. Her American ancestry dated back to the earliest settlers in Plymouth, Massachussetts. She had a petite, softly rounded figure, large gray eyes that darkened with emotion, small features and reddish brown hair which she wore parted in the middle with a bob at the nape of her neck.

She was the daughter of David and Azuba King LeBaron, born 7 October 1815 in LeRoy, Genesse County, New York. Her mother died shortly after her birth and her father remarried Lydia Batchelor. To this union a half-sister, Melissa Bloomfield LeBaron and two half-brothers were born. Upon baptism in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, the family moved from New York to Kirtland, Ohio to be with the Saints there.

Naomi was seventeen years old when she met and married James Sawyer Holman, a man eleven years her senior. Always a little shy around girls, James surprised himself with his interest in pretty little Naomi. She just seemed to know how to draw him out of shyness. They were married 24 March 1833.

James was the son of Jonathan and Zilpha Sawyer Holman, the fourteenth of fifteen children including three sets of twins born within a four-year period. His mother died when he was five years old. The Holman family was of aristocratic English lineage, proud, God-fearing and hard working. The family remained close after the death of their mother with the older girls looking after the family while the male members provided the livelihood.

When James first heard of the Prophet Joseph Smith through the missionaries, he was impressed by the sincerity of their message and was baptized.

Naomi had four children and one on the way when her half-sister, Melissa Bloomfield LeBaron, married Benjamin Franklin Johnson on 15 March 1841. Naomi was duly impressed with the tall, dark handsome young man who had recently completed a mission to Canada. Following the marriage, Benjamin and Melissa moved to Nauvoo where the Prophet Joseph Smith personally taught Benjamin the law of plural marriage. Little did Naomi realize the impact that this law and her sister’s husband would have upon her own family.

While living in Ohio, Missouri and Illinois, James and Naomi suffered tribulations and persecution along with the early Saints. Many were the times in the midnight hours, regardless of weather or state of health that James was called out to aid in protecting the Prophet Joseph Smith and the Saints from their enemies.

The death of the Prophet was a time of fear and anguish for all the Saints. Their grief for their fallen leader was great and despairing. James and Naomi were among the first families to move to Winter Quarters early in 1846. The following spring, James left his family and traveled with the first company of pioneers to cross the plains but he did not arrive until the fall of the year because he was given charge of a herd of sheep that were to be driven to the Salt Lake Valley. He remained in the valley until spring and then returned to Winter Quarters to get his family and return with them to the Salt Lake Valley.

Braving the sickness and privations of Winter Quarters, alone with her small family, was a very trying experience for Naomi. The hardships seemed endless. However, she helped with the sick and the dying, shared her means and gave comfort to others. Her own great faith and her love for her children were all that kept her going.

Word came early in the spring that James was returning to them. Although Naomi was very ill, she rose from her bed and declared that if she was re-baptized and given a blessing she would be able to make the journey. This request was granted and she and her six children, with her eldest son James driving a pair of oxen, were well on their way with a pioneer company when James met them. It was a joyous reunion.

The journey to Salt Lake Valley was dreary and toilsome. Their rations were limited. One of their oxen died and their cow had to take its place in the yoke. Just outside of Salt Lake City, on Emigration Road, Naomi felt she could go no further so the family set up housekeeping near a fresh spring of water. Together the family constructed a dugout by the side of a hill and lived there until logs could be hauled from the canyon to improve their shelter.

To supplement their scant food supply, Naomi traded butter for needed commodities such as salty bacon and flour. She taught the children to find sego lily bulbs and to dig the best and most edible roots. Even then, there were times when she saw her husband leave for a day’s work with only a drink of milk in the morning to last him until his return at night.

Soon after Naomi’s half-sister, Melissa, in company with her husband BFJohnson, arrived in the valley. James and Naomi’s daughter, Harriet Naomi Holman, became Benjamin’s fourth wife.

The Holman family joined Benjamin and his family, along with other, in colonizing Summit, now called Santaquin. Benjamin was appointed as the presiding Elder of the new settlement. Just as the families were becoming well established with prospects of a good future, Benjamin was called by the First Presidency to serve a mission in the Sandwich (Hawaii) islands. He had ten days in which to prepare for his departure. He left his families and properties in the hands of his father-in-law, James Holman, who also succeeded him as presiding elder.

Soon after Benjamin’s return from his mission, in February 1856, he married his fifth wife and second daughter of Naomi and James, Sarah Melissa Holman. A year later he married a third daughter, Susan Adeline Holman.

After withstanding crop failures and near starvation, the Holman family left Santaquin and moved to the area where Bountiful, Utah is now located and then to Uinta Springs or Fountain Green where they built the first home in that settlement. A great difficulty in Naomi’s life was that the family never lived in one place long enough to build a proper house. Her twelve children had been born and reared in homes with no more than one room.

She never knew the comfort or convenience of a stove until her children were grown. She had always done her cooking on an open fire or fireplace. She was known and remembered lovingly for her culinary arts. She baked bread in a little oval kettle with legs on the bottom to hold it out of the coals.

As a youth, Naomi had learned to card wool, spin yarn on her spinning wheel and make clothing out of her homespun material. She had to rely much on her own ingenuity and resourcefulness to feed and clothe the family. She was adept with handiwork and brightened her home with her creations.

Her husband, James, who was always stalwart in the Church, was a rugged, hard working and honest man. But he was confounded with much hardship and misfortune in his quest for making a living. He truly loved his little wife and children, extending every effort to care for them.

Her last home was a little adobe house in Holden, Millard County. Her husband died there 21 June 1873 a the age of 68 years. Naomi passed away eight years later. She raised eight of her twelve children to maturity, having lost four of them in death.

Naomi’s faith in God was her underlying strength. It gave her patience, forbearance and courage to meet the challenges of persecution, colonization, famine, sickness and death, which were generally the lot of the pioneers. She and her noble husband and family played a notable part in the establishment of the Church and its colonization in the state of Utah.