brothers, Edward B., notes a simple exchange between the two brothers that made a lasting impression.

"Another of my early recollections was of my brother, Ezra James, the oldest of my mother's large family. He was always very considerate of me. One day, when but a little chap I fell off a wagon. He picked me up and was so kind to me that I never forgot him. These are but a few incidents that I can remember about him,"8

Life in "Zion" was better than life on the plains, but not without its challenges as well. The persecution that had compelled his father out of Missouri to Iowa and then to Utah followed. When the U.S. Army, under the command of General Albert S. Johnson, came to make war with Utah in 1858 Brigham Young urged the saints to abandon their homes.

Ezra James was just 12 when he and his siblings went south to Payson to await the outcome of the anticipated conflict in response to Brigham Young's declaration in late March to abandon their homes.9 They returned to their home in Farmington later that year to find weeds growing in the normally well-maintained streets and the farm in need of the organizational care and attention that Ezra Thompson Clark demanded.

War would eventually strike very close to home for Ezra Thompson's oldest. While Utah had no direct involvement in the Civil War between the states, it felt its effects. The army needed recruits after the civil conflict to deal with growing Indian problems.

The Army sent a draft notice seeking the eldest in the family shortly after he had received his call to go to England. It must have been the ultimate irony for Ezra Thompson Clark to see his eldest son called to serve the country that had taken them to war and a government that had been an enabler to his family's persecutions in Missouri. Even the everlasting hills could not shield their oldest from this intrusion.

No timeframe is given, but a solution within the family was found. Ezra's brother Timothy Baldwin persuaded his parents to let him take the army job, so his older brother could serve God. It worked. Timothy

8 Autobiography of Edward B. Clark, page 3

9 Autobiography of Mary Stevenson Clark

8