Joseph Hyrum Stay

Joseph Hyrum Stay was born on Feb. 14 1851, At Nailsworth, Gloucester, England. When a small boy the family of five children, and father (Joseph Stay) and Mother Sarah Pearce) moved to St. Louis Missouri, where he obtained his education. Still while a small boy he would sit in the trees and watch the troops of Civil War go by.

He worked as a florist and landscape gardener the same trade as his father. Both worked for the Shaws Botanical Gardens in St. Louis. He was also a machinist, which trade he followed very little.

When he was about 25, the entire family moved to Salt Lake City where his father procured work with Walker Bros. Nursery. He, Joseph H., followed his trade with the Pioneer Nursery co., for Thomas H. Woodbury, as florist’s nurseryman and landscape gardener. He planned and landscaped the City and county building grounds in Salt Lake City, Utah. This line of work he followed for twenty years. Then he took up electrical engineering for the Utah Power and Light Co. He helped build a unit in Big Cotton Canyon. Later he ran that same unit as Hydrostatic Engineer.

When 26 years of age he married Mary Cornelia Woodbury, daughter of Thomas Hobart and Catherine Rebecca Haskell Woodbury; the couple made their home in the seventh Ward where eight children were born.

Later they moved to Mill Creek Ward, now Wilford Ward, on the 33^rd South and 16 East where the last Child, A son, Wilford Valentine, was born on his father’s birthday. February 14, 1897.

Joseph H. Stay died April 22 1898

Editors Note: This is from the Woodbury Family history, We need someone to write a more complete history, and to gather the many stories that are available and compile them for Stay Family Site.