George Allen Frost – he went by Allen, his father’s name – was born in London in 1838. His father died when he was 6, and after living for a time with his grandmother, he passed several years at an orphan asylum where, he says, he received “a good practical education.” Relatives raised the funds to send him to America to live with an uncle, who found him training in the printing and engraving business.

“My uncle was a Latter-day Saint and was president of the branch of the Church at that place,” (the village of Haverstraw, New York). In 1860, Allen fell ill and was bedridden for several weeks – time he passed reading Mormon literature, and becoming converted. “I applied for baptism, and was wrapped in a blanket and with some assistance was enabled to walk through the garden to a large mill race that supplied the factory with water. I was here baptized on the 3rd day of October 1860.” He soon made his way to Utah, married, and began raising a family.

In 1887, Allen and a large part of his family moved to Arizona, and in the following years they lived in Eager, Nutrioso, and Snowflake. He taught school, served occasionally as presiding elder, held minor civil offices, and generally pitched in wherever he saw a need. He never prospered enormously, but he produced the necessities of life for his family, and he continued working.

In 1892, while living at Snowflake, Allen decided to take his family to the great conference of Arizona Saints, held at Pinetop in the Mongollon Mountains. I posted the minutes of that conference back in February. It was an extraordinary conference, involving days of travel and then nights of camping, as members of the Church for several settlements listened to talks by visiting authorities George Q. Cannon and Joseph F. Smith. Missionaries were called, dances were held, choirs sang.

Allen kept a good diary, which his descendants have edited into a narrative. His record of that conference at Pinetop, somewhat abbreviated, follows:

July 1, 1892 Allen took his wife and nine children and the families of two married ones and started for Conference at Pinetop. The boys prepared a shanty for them to live in with tables, shelves and benches, and they were very comfortable.

Visitors from Salt Lake City were Elders George Q. Cannon, Joseph F. Smith (counselors to President Wilford Woodruff), Elder George Reynolds, and reporter. Conference commenced at 10:00 a.m. …

The pavilion was found to be entirely too small, and Allen was called to superintend an extension to be ready by 9:00 am the next day. Work began at daylight and was ready on time.

Celebration of Independence Day began at daylight on the 4th and a patriotic program followed. A grand ball was decided upon for the evening. Again Allen was given charge of the work of covering the floor with planed boards. It was ready at 8:00 p.m. and the place was lighted with 55 candles, lanterns, and kerosene lamps. President Cannon led the grand march and the quadrille that followed. Twenty sets were formed at once, making 160 persons dancing at one time. There was great joy and pleasure. Men and women from all over the State danced together as they had when they were boys and girls in Utah. …

On July 5 Conference convened all day, closing that evening with another dance.

July 6, the visitors held a meeting in Snowflake in the evening. Many from Maricopa Stake were there. During the conference, many sealings of husbands and wives were done by the presiding Brethren. …

In between all those meetings and parties and building, Allen found opportunity to raise a question with President Cannon. Those hundreds of conference attendants had made a tremendous effort to travel to Pinetop for conference – it was not something they could do frequently, but they had made the effort on this special occasion.

An even greater effort was needed for the Saints of Arizona to travel to temples in Utah to work for their dead. That was not something they could do frequently – but recognizing its enormous important, the Saints made the effort as often as they could to go to those temples.

But could there not be a temple erected in Arizona?

The First Presidency had discussed that need, President Cannon told him. All of the Church’s building effort and means, however, had to be devoted to the temple at Salt Lake City. Until that building was completed and dedicated, “it would be impossible to commence a labor of that nature.” Allen was left with the impression “that when the said Temple was completed, such a work as we desire would commence.”

The temple at Salt Lake was completed and dedicated the following year (1893), and Allen Frost watched for some indication that a temple might be built in Arizona. When more time passed, he took up his pen in 1896 to write to President Cannon.

We are told, “to ask and we shall receive.” We wish to offer some further reasons, why we should have the privilege of laboring on a Temple in our own land.

1st. Our own little town sends 8 teams overland to the Temples in Utah this fall, which represents in cash, time &c about $1000.00; other settlements are sending their quota, and the entire amount so expended by residents of Arizona this season in this behalf, might be saved to our impoverished country, if the work could be done here.

2nd. Many poor saints are entirely denied the privilege of laboring in a temple, because they are not able to undertake the dangerous journey from here to Utah.

3rd. Many good mechanics are idle out here, on account of the hard times, who would be glad to spend their time in the manner mentioned. We do not need a large or costly building, possibly one that would cost about $50,000.00 and that would take about 3 years to complete.

His practical arguments laid out, Allen next turned to even more important ones:

Life is short and full of vicissitudes; we all want to do labor for the dead, and are willing to help build a house at home to labor in. … I have great faith, that they [the First Presidency] are willing and anxious that we shall have the same blessings and privileges as our brethren and sisters in more favored lands.

Life indeed was short. Allen’s health began to fail. In January 1901, he decided to sell his Arizona properties and move to St. George, “so he could labor in the Temple the rest of his days, as he had a lot of incomplete work to be done for relatives he had gathered.” But there were to be no more days: although he succeeded in selling his property, Allen was too ill to reach St. George, and he died in Woodruff, Arizona on June 1, 1901.

It wasn’t until 1919 that Heber J. Grant announced the building of a temple at Mesa; it was dedicated in 1927. Keepa’ninny John Mansfield left a comment on that February post about the Pinetop conference that outlines more recent temple building in the area represented by Allen Frost:

I’ve been thinking since this report went up of eastern Arizona and the change in the pattern of temple use announced by Gordon Hinckley in October 1997, almost twenty years ago. A temple in Snowflake was dedicated in 2002, served by the Snowflake and St. Johns stakes and nine more that had been organized in the latter half of the 20th Century. That was followed by dedication in 2010 of a temple served by the St. Joseph (now Thatcher) stake and six others. Seven stakes are sufficient to serve a temple a couple hundred miles from an already existing temple now. The Snowflake temple district had its seventh stake in 1980, and the seventh stake in the Gila Valley temple district was organized in 1991, but that wasn’t the pattern of our temple worship in 1980 or 1991. The new pattern, that has a place for temples in somewhat remote, small places like Monticello, Thatcher, and Star Valley, seems closer to the pattern that created temples in St. George, Manti, Laie, and Cardston than to the late 20th Century pattern.