Elizabeth Ann Lloyd Evans –
Biography
As given by her
daughters, Mary Elizabeth Evans Sudgen and Martha
Maria Evans Moesser, in approximately 1822. Recorded by her grandson, David P. Sugden.
Elizabeth Ann Lloyd Evans, daughter of David and Sarah Jones
Lloyd, was born 20 November 1830 in Laughrne, Camarthenshire, South
Wales. Her mother died when Elizabeth
was but a child. Her father remarried, and very little
is known of him from then on. Her grandparents, George and Sarah Jones, raised
her until their death.
At this time the family all belonged to the Church of
England. Elizabeth was baptized a member of the LDS Church
on 14 August 1848 by Evan Jones. She had to walk five miles to church and would
often stay the whole day to attend all the services. She came to the United States when she was 20 years old, leaving
Swansea on the boat Troubador to Liverpool.
She left Liverpool on 17 October 1850 on the
ship Joseph Badger with 227 Saints on
board under the direction of John Morris. The ship arrived in New Orleans, Louisiana,
on 22 November 1850. From there Elizabeth went
to Winter Quarters where she worked until she had enough money to come to Utah. She often said
that she did not have it nearly as hard as many of the Saints working in Winter
Quarters, for the people she was working for were very good to her and accepted
her more as a member of the family.
Leaving Winter Quarters to cross the plains in Daniel Jones’s
ox-team company, she walked all the way with the exception of one-half day when
she was too sick to walk. She walked the entire distance barefooted for fear
there would be no shoes here when they arrived. The company arrived in the Great Salt Lake Valley on 22 October 1852. She worked
for Joseph Cain and John Taylor until the time she was married to John Thomas
Evans on 20 October 1855. Their first child, John Lloyd Evans, was born on 30
November 1856. During the summer of 1857 John T. Evans moved his wife and child
to Lehi where they stayed with the family of Abel
Evans, friends they knew in the old country. Being a member of the Homeguard, John T. Evans returned to Great
Salt Lake Valley to
help stop the invasion of Johnston’s
Army.
When the family returned from Lehi
they resided in the Sixteenth Ward. They then encountered the usual hardships
of the time, but never once did they complain. They always remarked that others
had it much worse than they. Mother used to spin and weave and make all of the
clothes and knit all of the stockings for Father and John, the oldest boy. John
has often remarked that he remembers his first store shoes, which were made of
cloth. We girls can remember when she would take the ordinary wheat straw to
make hats for us all. They had several shaped blocks for the different styles.
After braiding and sewing the braids together they would be soaked and put on
the forms to dry. Then they would put them in a tub and burn sulphur in it to bleach the straw. Our soap and candles and
practically every other necessity of the home were made by hand. When the
Relief Society was organized in the Sixteenth Ward she was made a teacher.
Later they moved to Hunter, then
called Pleasant Green. A few years later Hunter Ward was organized. Mother was
appointed First Counselor to Sister Cochran of the Relief Society. Father was
appointed Superintendent of the Sunday School. On 19
June 1900 father died. Mother continued to live in Hunter until the fall of
1906 when she moved to Salt Lake City
to live with her daughter Mary. She died 23 February 1914 at the age of 83
years.
Elizabeth Lloyd Evans was the mother of eight children—five boys
and three girls. She was a very devout member of the LDS Church.
Charity and doing good to others were the outstanding things of her life, even
at times to the extreme when she would deprive herself and her family of real
necessities to give to others who she though were less fortunate.
