Benjamin Waldron married Emeline Savage in polygamy at Kanesville, Iowa
near Winter
Quarters. Levi Savage Waldron was born to this marriage, July 7, 1850 in Kanesville, Potawattamie, Iowa.
The following
year, Emeline took her baby, Levi and her step son, Gillispie,
age 12, and traveled with the James Allred
Company to Utah.
Levi's mother told him of how his life was spared on at least two occasions.
One time Levi, being a baby, crawled into the middle of the circle of wagons among
the cattle. His mother told him how lucky he was to get out alive. On another
occasion they survived a buffalo stampede. They arrived in the Salt Lake
Valley a couple of days
after Levi's first birthday. They lived in their wagon in the pioneer
village for the rest of the summer and winter.
The next year Benjamin joined them. On Aug.
18, 1853, a new baby brother, Benjamin, was born to Emeline
and Ben. The family then moved to Centerville,
Utah where Benjamin built a shoe shop
of adobe and made shoes
In the spring
of 1855, Emeline, baby Ben, Gillispie,
and Benjamin went to the south end of the Malad Valley
at a place called Oregon Springs, close to east Portage, with some other families to homestead
the land. The first house at Oregon Springs was built of sod. Later they built
a house of cedar logs. The conditions were harsh and the Indians troublesome.
Indians eventually forced the family to return to Centerville
In 1869 Emeline and her children returned to Malad.
She and Benjamin had a misunderstanding,
and they divorced. Emeline and the children lived
with another family for a while and later moved to Samaria about October 6, 1870. Levi and Ben
took care of their mother. They built her a log house.
In 1873, Davinah
Elizabeth Roderick, a lovely Welsh convert, was with her family on their way
into the Malad
Valley. They met a wagon train
of farm produce moving south. The roads were narrow and dirt. They stopped to
converse one with another. Levi, in the train, chanced to see Lizzy (as she was called) with her parents, learned their intentions
to settle in Samaria,
and told his companions "that is the girl I am going to marry." He was 23 years old then, he had never shaved
in life. He was covered with the dust of farm labor on his work clothes. The
fellows told him "she might already have a beau," but Levi told them
he would cut him out. Davinah Elizabeth was only 13
or so years old and was not at all attracted to the young man who had fallen in
love with her. The Roderick family continued on into the valley.
Davinah Elizabeth Roderick was born June 5, 1859,
in Pendoylan Parish, Glamorganshire, South Wales. She was the
daughter of David and Hannah Spencer Roderick. They lived near the mines, and her
father worked as a carpenter in the mines.
Davinah
Elizabeth, or "Lizzie", as she was always called, was one of nine
children in the family. She had very little schooling, but she was a very good speller.
The Roderick
family, converts to the church in 1851, immigrated in 1869. They traveled to Utah by train. The
Roderick family stayed with their daughter, Margaret, in Brigham, for a time
before moving to Perry, then Pole Patch which is now called Mt. Pleasant,
just north of Ogden.
They were there about two years and then moved to Samaria, Idaho
in 1873.
Levi built a home for his bride in Samaria. Whenever he would
mention that he had built a house before he was married, he would say, "I
always believe that you should build a cage before you got the bird.?
On January 11th, 1875, Levi and
Davinah Elizabeth were married in the Endowment house
in Salt Lake City
by President John Taylor. Levi loved Davinah very
much. He devoted his entire life to making a good living for her and the
children. After their marriage, they moved into a two room log house. Elizabeth was not yet
sixteen but she knew how to cook and sew.
Levi was a typical pioneer, dealing with untamed
Indians and homesteading in the wilderness. He had little schooling but he had
a very brilliant mind and had many inventions. He was a hard worker. He cut and
hauled a lot of wood. Levi and Davinah lived in Samaria for nine years, and then decided to move to Gwenford, Idaho. When they left, they also moved their
house there. Over the years they built on and remodeled their home until they
had a modern house with many conveniences, unusual at that time. Five children
were born in Samaria.
Eight more children were born in Gwenford.
Lizzie always had to work hard. To keep house
for a husband and twelve children, one having died, is no easy task. Many times
she had to wash until 10 o'clock at night on the washboard with homemade soap.
She did all of the sewing for the family and knit mittens and stockings for all
of them. Many a night, she had to sit up almost all night to finish a pair for
one of the children. When the children were small and Levi was away from home,
Lizzie had to milk the cows. Often times, she would bundle her baby up in a
shawl and go out to the barn to milk. She also helped clear sage brush from the
land.
Levi took up a
claim and bought land. He helped his children get farms of their own. After he moved
to Gwenford, he made a track of 2 x 4's and a truck
that held a barrel that was sent down the hill to the mill to get water. He had
a way to stop the barrel. He would then hook a horse to the barrel and pull it
to the top of the hill. That is how he brought water to the house.
In the year 1895,
he invented a water-wheel to use in rolling grain and cutting wood and running grind
stones. He owned the first blacksmith shop in the valley. He kept a diary for
50 years. It is now preserved in the Special Collections library at Brigham Young University.
He spelled phonetically following his English accent. He kept track of business
transactions, work hours, deaths and funerals and the graves that he helped
dig. He recorded his feelings when his little son, David, was very ill and
died, and other trials that came his way.
He wired his house and had electric lights
run by power provided by the water wheel, which worked very well. That was
before Western States Utilities brought lines and replaced Levi's electric. He
built a fencer that stretched the wire for making fences, making it easier to
staple the wire to the posts. It was pulled along to stretch the wire and the
old wire could also be wound up on the spools. He made this in his shop, and it
saved a lot of time when he fenced. He also fixed an outfit to pull old staples
out of the fenceposts.
Levi bought a
grain binder, but it wasted so much grain that he fixed a canvas where the
grain was coming out, thus saving the grain. The agent came and saw how he had
fixed the binder. He shared his idea with them thinking they might pay him for the
idea but they said they couldn't use the idea. The following year they produced
a model using the very idea he had given them. He was never given credit or
paid for his idea.
Levi bought a
well machine and dug most of the wells in Samaria
and surrounding communities.
He was a man
with yankee drive and ingenuity.
He had three months of formal education, but all lived better because of his
achievements. He was creative with many skills. In 1908, he weatherboarded
and lathed and plastered the old house and remodeled it. A few years later, he
added rooms on to that again making a nice house. He also built his mother a
brick house near his brother's store.
Levi was always busy. He dug wells,
flowing wells, and made duck and fish ponds. He gathered ice from his ponds and
stored it in sawdust from his mill and preserved it for use in the summer
months. Many came to get ice from him to make ice cream. He made a measuring
chain out of heavy galvanized clothes line in foot lengths, two rods long, to
measure land. It was used for many years.
The last few years of his life he spent whittling miniature ox yokes and chains from wood
with his pocket knife. He carved many beautiful things. He was also a
carpenter.
He was generous
and hospitable and made everyone welcome in his home. He always offered food
and lodging. Levi played the violin and often played for the local dances with
Mr. Palmer and Joseph Thorpe. Their music was in popular demand. He played by
ear.
Levi did his
civic duty. He always voted. He served jury duty even when he had to travel all
the way to Blackfoot over dangerous roads past Robbers Roost. He helped build
the canal to Washakie for irrigation for the Indians. He built toys for his
children, worked on guns and made targets. He took his family to pick choke
cherries. He was on the board of the Samaria Water and Irrigation Company.
At the age of
73, he was still very active improving his inventions, making shoes, sawing wood, and such things. Levi would bounce the grandchildren on
his knee and sing "Old Dan Tucker" to them. He also told them Indian
stories.
Lizzy
loved to hitch her horse to the buggy and go to visit her family and friends.
When anyone was in trouble or needed help, she was always there to assist in
every possible way. She continued to drive her horse and buggy until she was 70
years old.
Lizzie said, "It wasn't always easy
to go to church with a large family like mine, but I tried to teach them to go,
and I think I have a good family."
She taught Relief Society for a number of years and had a
testimony of the Gospel. Even though she
had plenty to do, she found time to entertain guests, and everyone was welcome
in her home. She was a very good cook.
All her grandchildren loved to come and enjoy her raisin bread, and they often
said that her homemade bread was better than cake. I remember her raisin filled
cookies which were very good and always available when I went to visit her.
On January
11, 1925, Levi and Lizzie celebrated
their golden wedding anniversary. Most of their children, grandchildren and
great grandchildren were present.
Levi became ill
and was confined to his bed for fourteen months before his death and no one
could have been kinder and gentler to him than Lizzy
was. She cared for him until his death on March 9`h, 1936 in Gwenford. He was buried in Samaria. His funeral was very large as most
of the community attended.
After his death, she kept house for her
son, Charles, and seemed to have good health for several years. Even though she
was getting old, no one ever came to her home without her wanting to fix them something
to eat, no matter what time of day or night it might be.
A short time
before her death, she was honored at a Mother's and Daughter's program at Malad. There were
five generations present, and they had their pictures taken together.
In her older
years she lived with her son, Lew and his family as
did Charles.
Lizzie passed
away at her home in Gwenford, January 14, 1947, at
the age of 87, after an illness of three months. It was possible that she had
cancer of the liver according to one of her historians. She was survived by 11
children, 79 grandchildren, 121 great grandchildren, and 12 great, great
grandchildren. One writer reported a posterity of 224
at that time. She was buried in the Samaria Cemetery.
Information was
obtained from several histories by Mary W. Howell, Hannah W. Atkinson and some
unknown writers. Some information came
from the book by Elizabeth Ballard,
Pioneer Destiny, The Samaritan by Raymond R. Martin and Esther Jenkins Carpenter, Welsh Mormon History on the internet and
Daughter's of the Utah Pioneers Museum
in Salt Lake City.
