Anna Maria Davies (Moore)
My
great-grandmother Anna Maria Davies was alive when I was a young child. She was
very old and treated with the utmost respect. I remember large blotches of dark
colored skin lesions on her face, her pure white hair, and her very wrinkled 96 year-old hands. It was my first impression
of how old one of our loved ones can become. My father, Fred M. Moore wrote in
his personal history Life and Times of Fred M. Moore how much he adored
his grandmother and spent many hours listening to her stories of the pioneer
days and early settling of Provo
City.
Grandma
Moore, as she was called, was born 20 February 1854 in Dale, Pembroke, South Wales as the second child and second daughter of
John Quincey Davies and Mary Ellen Rees. She had nine siblings all from
Pembroke Wales. Her younger brother Charles Edwin Davies has a short history
written which describes what would have been common for all of these children
in Wales
at the time. This history can be found on www.welshmormonhistory.org, click on
"Immigrants."
Their food
"consisted of fish, soup, potatoes, no milk, with oranges and apples
brought in by ship. Corn was called Indian meal. Corn on the cob was new to
them when they came to America.
The children sold watercress and other greens to the sailors for money and fish.
They gathered copper rivets where the ships were being built and sold them for
spending money.
School
started at age four and would usually be attended until about age 12. While in
school, the only vacations the students had were at Christmas and the birthday
of the queen of England.
There were no summer vacations. Their first teacher as an old
maid in her 70s. The first two years they learned to read and to spell. Later
they studied geography, arithmetic, and writing. The hickory stick was a cane,
and the teacher was very efficient in using it to hit the children so very
little hickory stick was necessary.
A Mormon
missionary, Henry Jordon Moore, from Provo,
Utah, taught her the gospel and
baptized her into the church in 1865. He reported his mission back home in Provo and a few years later returned to Wales to ask
Anna Maria to be his wife. I'm not certain when he brought her back to Provo, but they were wed
18 November 1872 in the Salt Lake Endowment House. She would have come to America before
her parents did in 1880. They had five children: William Henry (1873), Frances
Ellen (1876), Frederick John (1877) Flora Heneretta (1879) and Beatrice (1883).
All of their children were born in Provo.
Her brother
Charles Edwin Davies owned 80 acres of farm land on the Provo bench, and 12 acres in the river bottom
which he kept for years and farmed. He had cows which furnished enough milk for
the family, and horses to help do the farm work.
I
am still seeking information to locate where Henry Jordon and Anna Maria Moore
were located and what profession he had. He died at age 48 on 24 Dec 1885. I
haven't been able to confirm for certain, but I believe she married again a
Steven Bliss Moore. There is no record of him in the IGI, but further research
should confirm this. The Utah State Death Certificate states she died one month
short of age 97 of bronchial pneumonia and a fracture of her left femor 2
January 1951 in Provo, Utah. She is buried in Provo Cemetery,
block 1, lot 29.
