Jedediah Dixon Skeen – November 30, 1877 – July 14, 1971
Completed and submitted by Junior B. and Elaine Charlton Brown
Jedediah Dixon Skeen (generally known as Jed or J.D.) was born in Plain City, Utah, November 30, 1977, fifth of a family of ten children to Lyman Stoddard ad Electa Philomelia Dixon Skeen. At an early age he helped with daily chores, hoeing, cultivating and irrigating on the family farm. The loss of his mother when he was fourteen years of age was difficult to understand and to bear.
Not having graduated from high school and the lack of finances made it impossible for him to attend either college than in existence in Cache County. His brother, Dr. Lyman Skeen with both his Ph.D. ad M.D. degrees who was an instructor of medicine at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, had offered their brother Joseph an opportunity to study there. Jed decided to take advantage of Joseph’s disinterest, so he herded sheep, became a teamster and saved $100.00, buying a new suit and other clothes. He began to work for the railroad, watering, feeding and moving livestock on and off railroad cars at rest stops on the way east. Without sleep and food for several days, he felt he would not be paid, so he hid in a car carrying horses. When he awoke, he found the horses had eaten all the hay, leaving him on the bare iron bars. At Omaha, he met a man who sold him a ticket to Charlottesville for $6.00.
Unbeknown to Dr. Lyman Skeen, his brother arrived in his sheepherding clothes with $30.00 in his pocket. He was assured that he could not compete without a high school education with highly educated students with college degrees. He also was warned not to take courses in logic from Noah K. Davis who failed more than 90 percent of his students. The first course Jed registered for was this class. He reasoned that if he failed that course he had no business studying law. He was one of seven out of thirty who passed.
Before enrolling in law school, he spent six months studying logic, English and other preparatory subjects. He then completed a three-year Law course in one year. He never took a note in class, never studied on Sunday, and never reviewed for examinations. Although warned that he could not be awarded a degree because of the lack of high school education, when he finished and was about to leave for home, the Dean sent word that because of the excellence of his work, he would be given the LLB Degree.
Upon returning to Ogden without money and business connections, there were no openings for a lawyer. He worked for a construction company and accumulated enough money to rent an office for $5.00 a month, boarding with a widow by doing chores and milking the cow. Here he met the widow’s granddaughter, Ethel Stratford. They were married November 19, 1902, a marriage that listed for sixty-eight years. Four daughters were born to them and one son who followed his father as a very capable lawyer.
He showed courage in bringing to light an irregularity indicating fraud in Ogden City funds. Unable to find a client who would sue the city officials, he did so himself. His life often was threatened; his wife was persecuted unmercifully. After losing his case in the lower court, the Supreme Court reversed the decision; all members of the Ogden City Commission were dismissed. This publicity brought many clients to the twenty-non year old lawyer. He continued his fight against crime in Ogden, assisted by the late David O. McKay.
After moving to Salt Lake in 1911, he established a law firm and continued the practice of law until over eighty years of age, specializing in land, water and bankruptcy cases. He was an independent thinker and a fighter when he knew he was right.
At the age of eighty, he launched a new business – that of farming. He loved the out-of-doors, especially fishing. He abstained from liquor and tobacco and was temperate in all things. He was great, though modest and humble, whose contributions to his family, his church, the law and to society are largely unknown and unrecognized. He always was proud of his membership in the L.D.S. Church and never denied it.
Writer Unknown
Uncle Jed was admitted to the Utah bar October 14, 1901, after graduation from Virginia with a Doctor of Law Degree. He was awarded a Juris Doctor Degree, effective February 7, 1970, an action the University too on behalf of early graduates.
Uncle Jed was admitted to practice before the Supreme Court of the United States and several U.S. Courts of Appeal. He practiced in all of the Intermountain States where handled many complex land and water cases. The State of Utah was a major client of his in dealing with land and water cases within the state and intermountain region. In the 1930’s he was given national recognition for assisting financially distressed Utah and Nevada and farmers and ranchers including his sister, Isabell.
Jed married Ethel Stratford on November 19, 1902 in the Logan L.D.S. Temple. They became the parents of five children: Edwin Jedediah, Helen S. Jones, Marian S. Merrill, Marjorie S. Russell and Virginia Ethel S. Cole. Ethel died in August 1970, eleven months before Uncle Jed. They were sweethearts for almost sixty-eight years.
Jed was a member of the Board of Directors of Utah State Agricultural College (Utah State University today) in Logan for many years. It was here that I became better acquainted with him. While I was attending school there in the late forties, he would call me if he had the time and take me to dinner at the Blue Bird. He would never let me pay. I always enjoyed my time spent with him. I told him he could leave me his farm which was north of Wellsville, but he sold it to the college where today it is used for animal plant study and research.
He was always there for Isabell in her time of need. During the lean years of the late twenties and early thirties, he was able to advise my parents on how to re-group and save most of the farm. He was able to help them secure a loan from the Federal Land Bank to pay off any pressing debt. When Dad was killed in 1956, Jed was the one who represented her in the accident and advised her and did the paperwork transferring the ownership of the farm. He was the one she always went for any legal advice. He would never accept any compensation, but would put his arms around her, kiss her on the cheek and say, “I love you, Isabell. This is the least I can do.”
Jed was one member of the family who would correspond and visit Aunt Electa (Lell) in Mesa, Arizona. In May of 1955, when she was swindled by a fast talking doctor and the state of Arizona, Uncle Jed and his son were the ones who took over and represented her affairs in handling conditions there. Isabell and Jed were too late in accomplishing their desires as she passed on soon after they were aware of her condition. They were able; however, to be reimbursed for some of her burial expenses. It was Uncle Jed who paid for the remainder of expenses for her shipment to Utah, the funeral, and her returning to Plain City to be laid to rest in the family cemetery plot.
These were only the tip of the iceberg in services he had done fore friends neighborhood, his community and family. I’m sure, direct family members could fill pages of his kind deeds and services.
J.D. Skeen’s spirit quietly left his tired body on Wednesday, July 14, 1971, in a Salt Lake rest home of natural causes at the age of ninety-three. His body was laid to rest in the Wasatch Lawn Memorial Park in Salt Lake. Uncle Jed was a High Priest in the thirty-third ward of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. At the time of his death, he left a legacy of five children, thirteen grandchildren and forty-four great grandchildren.
