 At age 12 his parents emigrated to Australia where he was apprenticed to an architect/mechanic.At age 16 he moved again with his mother and sisters, settling in the Mormon colony at San Bernardino, California, where he was employed as the chain boy on the crew that surveyed and subdivided that city.Four years later, when the colony collapsed the family moved to Utah, where they learned his father, rather than join the Mormons, had sold his assets in Australia, returned to England and died.