Joseph William Jensen Obituary

c. 1941 Joseph William Jensen "Bill"

Joseph W. Jensen

June 14, 1945, Deseret News 

[No photo included]

            PROVO – Funeral Services for Joseph William (Billy) Jensen, 18 year old Provo youth, drowned Sunday at the mouth of Provo River on Utah Lake, will be conducted Friday at 1:30 p.m. in the Provo Second Ward chapel by Bishop J. Earl Lewis.

            Burial will be in the Goshen cemetery.  Friends may call at the Valley Mortuary Thursday evening, and at the family home 713 W. 4^th S. St. Friday prior to Services.

Youth Drowns in Provo River
(Published in the Ogden State Examiner, Ogden, Utah on 11 Jun 1945)

PROVO, Utah, June 11 (AP) - An 18-year-old Provo youth met death by drowning last night when his horse threw him while fording the Provo river.

Police said the animal apparently had pawed the boy, Joseph William Jensen, after throwing him into the stream.

Diving from a rowboat, Miss Norma Brown 20, swam 75 yards to where Jensen hit the water but was unable to locate him. She dived several times in an effort to bring him up but was forced to stop when the chill water numbed her body.

Buried in the Goshen City Cemetery, Goshen, Utah, USA

Bill, as his family called him, was very good with horses, but one day when he was only 18 he and his brothers crossed the Provo River when the spring runoff was torrential.  The undertow took the legs right out from under Bill's horse, and they both fell in the raging river.  Bill's horse made it, but Bill didn't.  He didn't know how to swim.  His youngest sister, Rose Afton Jensen, recalled how she stood with her mother on the banks of the Provo River as they dredged the river and brought up her beloved brother's body.  To add insult to injury, Bill was buried on Afton's 12th birthday, June 15th, 1945, in the Goshen Cemetery.  For the rest of her life, Afton never learned how to swim and was afraid of water, and all because of the impact her brother's death had on her.   She said that Bill was a character, her protector, and her greatest tormentor!  One day, Afton got so mad at Bill that, when she was about 11 years old she took the scissors she was using to cut article from the newspaper and hurled them at Bill for something he had teased her about; their mother walked in the room, just as the scissors nicked Bill's cheek and hit the wall.  Afton got a lickin' for that little stint, but she felt more badly because she realized how her actions could have led to disaster.  She said Bill didn't tease her quite as much after the scissors incident.

Death Certificate for Joseph William Jensen