Aaron Zebulon Garff and Mina Comfort Garff

Aaron Zebulon Garff, who lived to be 94 years old, never married and from the records I have located, worked well into his senior age. Born in 1881 in the Utah Territory, he lived until 1975; much of this time in farming. His experiences were certainly similar to those around him. Children working to build up a community with parents who came from somewhere else and often from other countries; large families on subsistence quality land where water neither flows freely nor abundantly; a community largely of the same religion with like expectations. Aaron did not abandon this, as those “unfettered” sometimes do; not having a family of “his own” does not appear to have offered him a free ticket to go to distant places with riches and opportunities.

Indeed, on his WW I registration he is listed as working his own farm, and tells that his mother will always know where he is. This was 1918, when he was 37 years old. A quarter century later, on his WWII registration, 61 year old Aaron is working with his nephew Ken Garff’s automobile business. I see a man who did not abandon the family he did have; the same family that supported him in his turn.

This is a faint picture of Aaron Zebulon Garff, though we honor him still who know him least; I am sure the nephews and nieces in the Peter Nielsen Garff family have particular accounts, but I have found no record to put doubt what I have written.

Mina Comfort Garff, 1884 – 1974, was the fourth of five daughters, and would grow up with seven brothers as well.  I am relying on the account given in People of Draper 1849 – 1932, which account was given by her daughter Grace Mickelsen Payne.

Mina married Soren J. Mickelsen in 1907, and in this union her children would recall parents “as one” in purpose and taking an equal part in making a successful home. This home is reported to have been kind and loving, generous and dependable. The care taken inside was equaled on the outside; Mina’s gardens were worthy of local recognition.

In her early life Mina learned music sufficiently to serve others with her talent and skill as a soloist, in church callings and in community committees and activities. Mina was selected as Draper Queen one year, indicating that she was representative of what that community wanted in their young women. Later she served on the Jordan District School Board.

In marriage she served the elderly on the Old Folks committee, and with her husband we must believe she supported wholly the aid they gave to widows and others in need. Their business in lumber and hardware ‘gave back’, as we say today.

Mina was mother to five, four daughters and one son. Her husband Soren - S. J. – Mickelsen, passed away in 1936 and they are at rest in the Draper City Cemetery.