Rees, Emma David - Biography

LIFE SKETCH OF EMMA DAVID REES

Written by Herself March 8, 1914

(Sixty-five years from the day she left Liverpool, England to come to America)

I was born August 5, 1839 in Llanelly, Glamorganshire, South Wales.  My father joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in 1846.  I was blessed in 1846.  My father and family started from Wales on February 14, 1849, sailing on the Troubador from Swansea to Liverpool.  We left Liverpool on March 8, 1849, on the good ship “Artley” and landed at New Orleans.  We sailed up the Mississippi to St. Louis, and landed there May 12, 1849.  My mother and oldest sister died there with cholera.  My father and [his] five daughters remained there until 1852 when we started on our journey West.

            We stayed at Council Bluffs ten weeks, then we continued the journey west and arrived in Salt Lake City on September 19, 1852.  I was baptized at St. Louis in June, 1850.  I crossed the plains with my father and sisters by ox teams.  We were with the 13^th company under Captain Williams Morgan.  I was married to Alfred Rees on August 14, 1859 by Stephen Markham.

            He [Alfred Rees] was a farmer.  I had ten children and went through all the hardships of the pioneers.  I learned the millinery trade and was in business twenty-two years.  [Spanish Fork History states Emma was the first woman to open a business there].  I have eight children living, thirty-three grandchildren, and two great grandchildren.  My husband died on the 11^th of July 1910.  We lived together 51 years.

[Emma David Rees died 15 January 1915 in Spanish Fork, Utah.  She is buried in the Spanish Fork Cemetery]

The following is written about Emma by her daughter, Hannah:

            My mother was thirteen years old when she came to Utah.  She learned to utilize everything within reach to provide the necessary things of life.  She spun and wove the cloth for their garments.  She braided the straw for their hats, and trimmed them to a queen’s taste.  She did the sewing for two of her sisters, Hannah and Rachel.

            After marriage, she made the clothes my father wore, and always foxed their trousers.  I will explain how the trousers were foxed.  There were two kinds of materials used – one for the foundation, and other (of different color) for the trimming or foxing.  The trimming pieces were strips cut 2 ½ inches wide, scalloped or cut pointed, put on and stitched on the side seams and around the bottom.  Sometimes they had a heart-shaped patch on the knee and also in the seat.  When I see some of the fancy cowboy boots of today, they remind me of the foxed trousers my brothers wore.

            It has been told before, of how the pioneers made the flour and gathered the saleratus to make their bread.  Many incidents of note had happened to my mother in the stirring times of the early pioneer days.  At one time, she and a few other girls were roaming around the fields where the sugar factory is now – what used to be the old Markham homestead.  They were barefooted.  The girls were surprised when they were surrounded by young buck Indians.  They all ran, but Eliza Martell, who was very tender footed.  My mother stayed behind to help her.  When the young Indians lassoed and roped them together, they were very much frightened and thought they would be harmed.  But the squaws came to their rescue and released them from a frightful situation.

            While in her teens, Emma went to Salt Lake to assist some of the Saints in their housework and thought they were not treating her right.  Later she discovered that it was a case of “homesickness.”  She decided to come home and walked nearly to the Point of the Mountain.  A man on horseback offered her a ride, which she gladly accepted, and she rode behind him as far as American Fork.  She stayed there overnight and then walked to Springville, where she met Uncle William Thomas on a horse coming to meet her.  She rode with him home.  [Emma’s youngest daughter, Vivian, recorded that Emma had actually been sent to Salt Lake City for the purpose of becoming a polygamous wife to an older gentleman there.  When she discovered that this was her destiny, she ran away.]

            After her marriage, their first home was a dugout, the second one was a little better, located where the Will Rigtrip house now stands, and three children were born to them there, and the rest were born in the house I am now living in.  

Mother was very hospitable, kind-hearted, brave and generous.  With her husband, she was always ready to give a helping hand to those in sickness and distress.  She was very generous to the needy, always ready to aid her neighbors and friends where help was needed.  There were no undertakers in this community during the early pioneer days, and my mother was called upon to attend to this type of service.  She not only laid out the dead, she administered to the sick at any time.  She was not afraid to enter any home that had contagious diseases such as diphtheria in the most virulent form.  At one time, she was called to go to the home of Mrs. Bjarnsson where two cases of Black Diphtheria prevailed.  Death won, but she laid the children out, made their clothes, dressed them, put them in their caskets with the aid of the Marshall, John W. Moore, carried them out of the house to be laid in their last resting place in the Spanish Fork Cemetery.  The neighbors were so afraid of this disease that they dared not come near.  And my mother had to hold the horses while the Marshall carried the caskets into the house.

There were many others at that time that she assisted in life trouble.  Mrs. Peter A. Boyack had two children die of the same disease, as did the Reverend Theodore Lee.  She assisted them all, and performed this service without any compensation.  She was very careful, however, not to bring any disease home to her own nine children.  She bathed herself in carbolic acid water and changed her clothing in an old granary near the house, and not one of us had any of the contagious diseases that prevailed in the community at that time.

We never knew when morning came whether our mother would have breakfast with us or not, as she was out in all kinds of weather with her services of mercy.  One outstanding event I will always remember was in May of 1893.  Mrs. Margaret Miller had died and Mother was called to act as undertaker and to oversee the burial clothes and other duties pertaining to the task.  After the burial, our family was at the evening meal when she was impressed with the thought that Mrs. Miller’s [new] garments had not been marked.  In the stress of the great responsibility which devolved upon her, this detail had been overlooked.  Mother did not finish her supper.  She had my father harness the horses and went to Mr. Miller and the Sexton, John Rowe.  They went to the cemetery, reopened the grave, and Mother got down and she marked Mrs. Miller’s garments.  My father lowered a lantern for her to see.  [Then] she stood by while they [re]covered the remains.  They reached home at 12 o’clock that night.  Mother was ill the day of the funeral, and that was the reason for her forgetting.

She was midwife and nurse in many critical confinement cases.  Lots of humor was attached to some cases.  One such case was when she left her household tasks for one of us to finish in order to answer the call of a distraught husband to help his wife.  My mother was getting ready to churn when Mr. Evans appeared and asked for help as he could not locate a doctor.  She told my sister to finish the churning.  After all was done, we found out that we had lost our dishrag in the churn with the butter.  The doctor arrived after my mother had delivered the young mother and made her comfortable.  She had the everlasting gratitude of Mr. and Mrs. Evans and family.

My mother’s hobby was reading.  She led such a busy life that she got little time for this pleasure during the daylight hours, but she read a great deal at night after the family had retired and the house was quiet.  It was nearly twelve o’clock one night when her lamp was still burning, and Charles W. Booth knocked at Mother’s door to ask for assistance for his wife who was ill.  She put down her book and accompanied him to the sick bed.  There was no doctor available that night, and Brother Booth was exceptionally grateful for her service as doctor and nurse at the birth of their first child.  In expressing his appreciation to her he remarked, “And thank God for the novel.”

Mother forgot her own suffering in the service of others.  On one occasion, she was called upon to go to a sick bed while she was quite ill.  She responded with a willing, “Yes, I’ll go.”  Fearing for her safety, her daughter remonstrated, but Father said, “Let her go, she will forget her own trouble if she can help someone else.”  She was gone from home for several hours and when she returned, she was feeling much better.

She was very public spirited, and was chairman of many committees on every holiday, and designed numerous floats for the parades.  She was a firm believer in women’s suffrage, and was one of the first women to organize for women’s suffrage in Spanish Fork.  She worked hard for the franchise of women in the great State of Utah.  She was a delegate to every Democratic Convention until 1912, and always kept abreast with current events.

She established the first millinery business in Spanish Fork in 1883.  In her business she came in contact with the poorer class of people – especially the immigrants.  She was their friend and advisor and shared with them her worldly goods, and many of them kissed her hand as a token of thanks.

She had ten children. Nine reached the age of maturity and reared large families.  Margaret died in infancy.  Her children are:  Alfred, Ann, Elizabeth, Thomas, Hannah, Mary, Emma, Jane, Leonora and Vivian.  Ann died May 7, 1890, leaving three boys ranging in age from 3 to 8 years.  My mother cared for them until they grew to manhood.  They were Adam Rees, Alfred J., and George Irvine Burt.  Her sisters were:  Mary Bowen, Betsy Thomas, Ann Warner, Hannah Hughes and Rachel Chambers.  She died January 10^th, 1915, strong in the principles and faith that she believed.