Life Story of

Mary Anne Williams Leatham

I was born at Aberdare, Glamorganshire, Wales, December 25, 1851, daughter of Rebecca Evans, who was the only daughter of a well-to-do family living at North Parish, Pembrokeshire, Wales. 

My father, John Williams, was a convert to the faith of the Latter-day Saints Church of Jesus Christ, when 19 years of age.  He later became a traveling missionary and was serving as such when he met my mother, Rebecca Evans, who also joined this unpopular church my father had joined.  They were married a short time later.

My mother was disowned, given all her personal possessions, and her parents forbade her ever returning to their home again, they not wishing to see her ever again.

It was a sad day when she said farewell to her parents.  She was ill suited for the life which was to follow.  She was educated in music and singing.  Among her accomplishments, she had a thorough knowledge of fine needle artwork, which was to be of great value to her and her family. 

My father, John Williams, was educated as a mining engineer and musician.  One of my earliest recollections was the planning of my parents to come to America where the Latter-day Saints could practice their chosen religion.  My father had so far successfully made a good home and living for his growing family.

When they decided on the trip to America, there were seven of us children, I being the third.  A short time before leaving, we came down with scarlet fever.  Four of my brothers died in one week, three of us seven were left: my sister Elizabeth, age 12; myself, 11 years old; and my brother Dan, 6 years old.  The shock and grief of their terrible loss left my mother very ill.  She was carried on board the vessel and was accompanied by a nurse my father had persuaded to come with us. 

We sailed the 23 April, 1862, on the good ship John J. Boyd.  We were 7 weeks on the water.  My mother was very ill all the way.  My father and the nurse were with her constantly which left we three children very much alone.  We had been on the way about three weeks when a terrific storm overtook us.  Our ship sprung a leak and for 36 hours every man had been ordered to the pumps. 

Most vivid of all is the description given by Ann Pitchforth in a letter to friends.

Wave lashed on wave, and storm on storm, every hour increasing; all unsecured boxes, tins, bottles, pans, etc., danced in wild confusion, cracking, clashing, jumbling, rolling, while the vessel pitched, and tossed, and bounced till people flew out of their berths on the floor, while others held on with difficulty; thus we continued for eight days – no fires made, nothing cooked – biscuits and cold water; the waves dashed down the hold into the interior of the vessel, hatchway then closed, all in utter darkness and terror, not knowing whether the vessel was sinking or not; none could tell – all prayed – an awful silence prevailed – sharks and sins presented themselves, and doubts and fears; one awful hour after another passing, we found we were not yet drowned; some took courage and lit the lamps; we met in prayer, we pleaded the promises of God – faith prevailed; the winds abated, the sky cleared, the fires were again lit, then the luxury of a cup of tea and a little gruel.  Oh, how ungrateful we are for our mercies, because they are so common.

When the storm was over the leak was repaired and we went safely on our way.  We children were permitted on the deck again.  My little brother Dan and I had just got to the top of the stairway when some children, running and playing, accidentally bumped my little brother down the hatchway, breaking his back.  He died almost instantly and was buried at sea.  My sister and I were the only ones out of seven children to reach America.  The weeks following were very sad ones for the remaining John Williams family.  Sister Polly Joist, now residing in Ogden, Utah, and also Brother Clark of Ogden were among the children on that ship.

We landed at St. Lawrence the last of August.  One month later we joined Captain Duncan's party, then we proceeded to walk across the plains.  On the way my feet became poisoned.  It was almost impossible to walk, and there was no place to ride as everyone walked except the extremely ill.  An independent party en route for California took pity on me and gave me wagon room part of the way.  Most of our party walked the entire trip.  Mother sold much of her fine linens, silks, cloths, thread, etc., and bought sturdy shoes and clothing more appropriate for the plains.  The party arrived in Salt Lake City on the 24th of September, 1862. 

We then started for Tooele where Grandfather Williams had located a couple of years previous.  Real hardships were known there.  Since my father was unused to farm labor, and my mother was ill, and expecting, our suffering was intense.  My grandfather's wife, a woman he married after coming to Utah, taught mother and I how to spin; we carded and spun yarn on shares to make cloth enough for a suit of clothes for father, and myself a warm dress.  I was not tall enough to reach the spindle so Father made a plank walk for my spinning wheel.  My sister, Elizabeth, now was an invalid not able to do but very light tasks.  That winter was long and hard.  We could not speak the English language and many times were hungry and cold.  We had one room with a dirt floor.

Mother was ill from lack of nourishing food and the cold.  We had no butter, eggs, or milk all winter.  Bread very sparingly with a little beet molasses was our chief diet.  One day Mother expressed a wish for a little butter.  I went to the home of a good neighbor, Sister Hooeks (sic).  I asked if I might work for a little piece of butter for my mother since she had a cow.  I worked all day.  She gave me three eggs, about 2 ounces of butter and a small pail of buttermilk.  I felt richer that day than ever in my life, but those small luxuries were dearly paid for.  I ran home so proud and happy with those precious things for my mother.  My happiness was short lived.  Father's stepmother accused me of stealing, saying she saw me taking eggs from her coop.  My mother would not eat them.  My father was so angry, striking me the first and only time in my life, saying better to starve than steal.  I took him to the woman I worked for, proving to him I had stolen nothing.  He was so happy and sorry.

That was the turning point of our lives.  We left our grandfather's home.  Father borrowed a yoke of oxen and a running gear.  We took all our earthly goods and started for Cache Valley.  We arrived at Wellsville, Cache County, March 1863, tired and hungry as usual.  Father immediately started to find food; Mother and I to build a house.  We camped near a family named Obenry.  The family was very kind to us.  Brother Obenry gave us some long sticks from his wood pile.  We stuck them in the ground Indian fashion, put a blanket and quilt around them and that was our home, a shelter such as it was.  Father brought home a bushel of wheat and we had boiled wheat for supper.  Next day Brother Charles Bailey gave us the use of his stable, an old one, until we could get a house built.  Houses were few as there were but a few settlers at that time.  We took possession of our stable home.  Three days later my brother, John, was born.  I was then 12 years old and head cook, nurse, and housekeeper.  Our beds were straw piles on dirt floors until father made us bunks.  Father then took the oxen and running gear back to Tooele, then walked all the way home.  We were now more contented and happy.  We had a home of our own that summer.

Mother and I pulled sunflowers from 30 acres of wheat for enough calico to make a dress, Mother with her baby strapped on her back.  Father worked for Brother Bankhead that summer, also got enough logs to build a hut.  That fall Father made us all a pair of shoes with cowhide soles and tops from his broadcloth coat of his evening dress suit, one of the last relics of his gentleman days.  He also made himself a pair of boots from cowhide, he and a man named Jeff.  There was not enough for two pair, so Father wore them one Sunday, Brother Jeff the next, with burlap wrapped around their feet weekdays.  All our feet were badly frozen that winter.  Every time we took our shoes off they were filled with blood.

Father and I made beet molasses for a Mr. Shumway all winter for a third of what we made, which we sold for food.  I managed to get two weeks of schooling that winter.  Our schoolhouse was a little room in the home of Thomas Bradshaw, our teacher.  We had one book for everyone.  The next spring I started work in the field driving oxen to plow 40 acres in my bare feet.  All summer and fall I raked, cradled and bound wheat.  Mother did sewing and dressmaking for the few able to pay for that kind of work.  We were also learning to be contented and happy, also thankful.  Father had brought his clarinet from the old country and with Mother's vocal training for a grand concert singer, they organized a choir, which proved later to be a great success.  Father also wrote music and organized the first band.  Their music furnished much happiness and pleasure for them.  Generations after there are still some living who played in that brass band who say there was nothing ever like the old John Williams' band.

I received about three month's schooling in this country but the help from my father and mother more than made up for my lack of schooling.  When night came, our schooling began at home.

The Indians were very troublesome, stealing and plundering and everything, including horses and cattle.  One Sunday while most everyone was at our meeting house, word came to us that Indians on the warpath were looting and burning the flour mill owned by Brother Thurston.  There was a terrific fight before they drove the Indians away.  Brother Thurston's little 4-year old daughter was missing.  She never returned.  Twenty years later an old Indian came and told her father she had died of consumption.  Her father had searched years trying to find her.

On October 10, 1868, I became the plural wife of Robert Leatham.  My parents had gone back to Tooele leaving me the home they had built in Wellsville.  We had many hardships; the grasshoppers came in great clouds destroying our crops, not leaving a blade of grass.  The sky would darken as though a great storm were coming: grasshoppers, millions of them.  The men would dig trenches; we would all turn out driving them into the trenches.  The men would burn them.  This was in 1870.

My husband was obliged to go south to work, as no crops were raised in the two years of grasshopper troubles.  I was left alone with a year-old baby, my nearest neighbor on the next farm.  If I was in trouble, I would put a light in the window.  The snow was so deep it would take hours to get in touch with them.  The ice on the window was so thick no small light would be visible.  My little boy became very ill with pneumonia.  We had never heard of a doctor.  I did all I knew how trying to keep him warm, plastering his lungs with everything I had in the house, cutting wood to keep us warm.  The wolves would come howling at the door.  They were very troublesome, howling and barking the night through until it was hard to hear my baby breathe.

On the night of October 18, I sat alone with him.  I do not know what hour he died.  Sometime the next day the neighbors a mile away became alarmed because they did not see smoke from our chimney.  They took my dead baby from my arms and were so kind and good.  I was so very young and alone, an inexperienced 16 year-old.  Two months later my second son was born. 

My life moved on bringing many joys and much happiness.  God had blessed and prospered us.  In 1883 my husband was called to the bishopric at Providence where we were located until my husband's death the next year.  I moved back to Wellsville to the new home we had built just before we left for Providence.  My tenth baby was born three months after my husband's death.  I had then seven small children alive, my oldest 13 years old.  I was then not quite 32 years old. 

Trouble was coming my way fast.  All means of support was taken away.  I had to beg a bag of flour from my husband's full bins.  I was given one of my six cows I had raised myself; an old span of horses for a little 13 year-old boy to take to the canyon for wood to keep us warm.  He got his eye put out trying to cut his first load of wood.  My little girl had her arm broken in two places from a fallen gate, with no doctor to be had and my baby 3 days old.  We got a veterinarian doctor who did a fine job on the broken arm.  My son's eye might have been saved had we been able to get a doctor.  I think it was then that I prayed the most earnest prayer of my life for my Heavenly Father's aid and help. 

I made lace and did sewing and got money enough to buy an old loom.  I started weaving carpet for 10 cents a yard.  I got plenty of work.  That spring my oldest daughter became ill with spinal meningitis.  She was in bed so very ill for months.  She did not walk for over a year and was never very strong after.

My children then came down with measles.  My dear little boy who came after his father's death died that winter at the age of two and a half years.  We all loved him so dearly.  I kept my children at home and in school. 

Seven years later my husband's estate was taken into court and I and my children were given the help we should have had when we almost starved to death and we needed help so desperately.  And it was such a help as my health was so poor. 

I have reared an honorable family with the help of my Heavenly Father.  I have lived to see wrongs made right, brothers and sisters brought together with love and respect for each other.  Our faith has proved true and right.  I am thankful for the belief in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and the many blessings received.  I am a very thankful, happy woman for the friends who helped me.

(Signed) Mary A. Leatham