July 13 - Mary Ann Payne

Submitted By: Roger Slagowski (At the age of eight, with his entire family (father, James Mellor Sr.(37), mother, Mary Ann Payne (36); sister, Louise (15); sister, Elizabeth (14); sister, Mary Ann (10); brother, William C. (5); and the twins, Emma N. And Clara A. (3)) sailed from Liverpool, England on the ship "Horizon" in 1856. Just before they left for America, Mary Ann Payne gave birth to twins, Elizabeth and Eliza Mellor, who died after birth. Although the mother was so sick that she was told she would die on the boat, she was blessed by the Elders who told her that she would live to see Zion. They landed in Boston Harbor June 2,1856, traveled to Iowa City, Iowa which they left on Jul 28,1856. They left Florence, Nebraska (Winter Quarters) with the Martin Handcart Company, on Aug 25,1856 with 576 people (See the book Charlotte Elizabeth by Jo Ann Mellor Felix for more details). Arrived in the Salt Lake valley Nov 30,1856 after suffering severe hardships.

Not one member of his family died on that fateful journey; but one of the 3 year old twin girls never had her shoe size get larger than size 3 because of frostbite of her feet from the trip.


While with the Martin Handcart Company, Mary Ann Payne, James Mellor Senior's wife decided to lighten their load by selling some of her children's clothes in Iowa which was two miles away. She knew that the company would go on without her; but, she felt that she could catch up quickly because she would be traveling light. She left early in the morning with her oldest daughter, Louisa (age 16). When they reached the town they found that no one in town wanted to buy the clothes; so, they decided to go door to door. By the time they had sold the clothes, it was noon-time. They left quickly and attempted to catch up with the company. Mary, however, was so hungry and faint that she finally told Louisa to go on without her. Louisa would have none of that. She instead walked ahead a short distance, kneeled down, and poured out her heart to the Lord to help them. She arose and headed back toward her mother on the same path she had just taken. She walked a short distance when she suddenly saw something in the prarie grass. It was a freshly baked pie! It was laying right side up, and the crust wasn't even broken. They both thanked the Lord for the immediate answer to her prayer, ate the pie, and resumed their tip toward the company. In the meantime, since they had not caught up with the company in the time expected, James Sr. had taken his handcart to go look for them. He found them and took them in the handcart back to camp. The company eventually got stranded and rescue parties were sent to help them.

Louisa (the 16-year old) also had another experience in which her hair became frozen to the ground at night, and the company had to use an axe to cut her free. They had no better tools to use.

This story can be found at http://www.suplibrary.org/stories/detail.asp?id=195

Margaret McNeil (Ballard)

I wish that I could just copy and paste this marvelous story here for you, but since there are copyrights involved, you will need to go to the actual link where I found her information. Copy and paste this link into your address bar:

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://heritage.uen.org/images/McNeilMargaret.gif&imgrefurl=http://heritage.uen.org/pioneers/Wc7b28175fe4df.htm&usg=__-cuK44st0saRIjbXhWmmyT_YdD8=&h=215&w=191&sz=28&hl=en&start=1&um=1&tbnid=Ug2yeOWiXeZZMM:&tbnh=106&tbnw=94&prev=/images%3Fq%3DMargaret%2BMcNeil%2BBallard%26hl%3Den%26rlz%3D1W1DLUS_en%26sa%3DN%26um%3D1

I also wanted to note that her story and photo can also be found in the book "I Walked to Zion" by Susan Arrington Madsen beginning on page 124 - 127. This book is wonderful and is filled with true stories of Young pioneers on the Mormon trail. If you like to read books and want one about Pioneers, I recommend this as a very good read! Katie G.

July 11 - Jane Jenkins Howe

A WIDOW SUPPORTING HER FAMILY
Submitted By: Ray Don Reese
Jane Jenkins was born on 24 August 1806 in Wick , Glamorgan, South Wales. She married William Howe on 7 May 1833 in St. Brides, Glamorgan, South Wales. They made their home in Wick which is a small community near the sea. They were blessed to have four children born to them. They were Cecilia, William, Ann, and Jane. Her husband, William, was the talk of the surrounding country because he was very strong. It was said he could lift great barrels of beer with ease which he delivered from the manufacturers to the retailers.

While the children were quite young, William contracted a prolonged illness and died on 1 August 1846 at St. Brides. In order to support herself and her family of small children, Jane made cookies, cakes, and bread which were put into small home made baskets and the children would sell them to regular customers and at the Southern Down Resort. In order to have a variety of cakes, the mother and children would go down to the seashore when the tide was out and gather larva from the rocks. This substance looked somewhat like lettuce. They washed the sand from it and put it into baskets and buckets. It was later baked as part of the cakes. These children thought nothing of walking three or four miles and selling this food for a schilling a pound. Sometimes Cecilia and Ann worked as nurse girls and as ladies maids.
The mother spent a great deal of time in the grain fields gleaning in order to feed a few ducks and geese which they kept in their yard. These were fattened, killed, dressed and sold in the market at Bridgend, about four miles from Wick. This industrious mother would sometimes make clothing and dye cloth for people. This added a little more to the family income. Her yeast jar was always kept well filled in order to be exchanged for flour.

In about 1863-64, Jane heard from her brother, David Jenkins, that a John Taylor was in Merthyr-Tydell preaching about a new religion. She and some neighbors walked there to hear about this new doctrine. Jane Howe was one of the first persons in the St. Brides area to be baptized into this new religion. She belonged to the Cardiff Branch and there was a great deal of prejudice against this new Church. They performed their baptisms at night and dried their clothes around the stoves in their homes. The children were not allowed to go to school because of their religion.
By this time the children had married and left home and Jane met a LDS widower, William Williams. They married and in 1866 decided to immigrate to Utah. They left Liverpool, England on 18 May 1866 on the sailing vessel, Arch Bright.

The Civil War was not long over and the immigrants were ordered to go by way of the Canadian border and the St. Lawrence River. They finally arrived in Chicago and were placed in cattle cars to Missouri. Here they took a boat up the Missouri River to old Fort Kearney which was the outfitting place of the Mormons in 1865-66. They were begged to stay over the winter but William Williams is reported to have said, “I’m going to Zion if I die on the way.” When Jane heard the men cursing while preparing to leave she asked Captain Thompson if they were Latter-day Saints. He answered, “”Well, they’re suppose to be.” She said, “Well, I never heard such language.” While traveling over the plains many became ill because of the bad water and poor food. William Williams was one of them and his last words were, “I am at peace with all men and on the road to Zion.”

Jane Howe Williams arrived in Salt Lake City on 27 October 1866. Being alone and with a place to stay she said, “Well, if this is Zion I wish I were back in Wales.” After about a month of staying with a Welsh family, John S. Davis, in Salt Lake she decided to move to Spanish Fork where there were more Welsh settlers. Here she again began to support herself by doing many of the things she had done in Wales. She would go out and do sewing by the day and many times had walked from Spanish Fork to the swamp west of Springville to gather hops. She used those to make yeast which she exchanged for flour and sugar.

Later she married a devout Latter-day Saint widower by the name of David Evan Davis. When she was about eighty her daughter, Ann, who was married to George Crane invited them to move to Kanosh, Utah to be near her. Her husband, David Evan Davis, died in February 1889 and she died 23 December 1889 in Kanosh where she is buried. This story is taken from a short history written by her granddaughter, Maude Crane Melville. Maude’s daughter, Ethel Melville, became the wife of Horace Sorenson, a NSSUP past president and the founder of Pioneer Village.

This story can be found at this link: http://www.suplibrary.org/stories/detail.asp?id=194

July 8 - Catherine Gougar Goodman

This Pioneer was not a Utah Pioneer, but her story is well worth noting.

South of the Alfred Immell home near the Chillicothe-Columbus pike, west of Kingston, Ohio, has been erected a fine monument to mark the last resting place of Catherine Gougar Goodman, the first white woman settler in Ross County, of whom there is any positive record.

The monument was erected by her descendants headed by Ex-Mayor Oliver P. Goodman of Kingston. Many of the family live in Green Township and Chillicothe. The spot where the monument stands had been cleared by Catherine Goodman herself and it was her request that she be buried there. It is now visited by many tourists, standing as it does on historic ground; -- ground where she herself was held captive by the Shawanese Indians. The inscription on the monument reads,

In memory of Catherine Gougar, pioneer wife and mother, born in New Jersey, 1732, captured by the Indians 1744 in Berks County, Pennsylvania, and for five years held a captive at and near this place. Sold to French-Canadian Traders, she served in Canada for two years. Finally gaining her freedom, she returned to her former home only to find her parents gone and herself homeless. She lived with friends until 1756 when she married George Goodman, who died in 1795. With her son, John, came to Ohio in 1798 and by a strange fortune, settled on this spot where she had been held a captive while with the Indians. Died in 1801 and lies here in the place chosen by herself and cleared by her own hands. This monument erected by her great great grandchildren in 1915.

Her parents emigrated to Northumberland County, PA, when she was a little girl and later moved to Berks County, being among the early Pioneer families in that part of the county. In 1744 when she was 12 years old, she and a little brother were captured by Indians. Her father [and brothers] were killed in the fight, but her mother [and a sister] had gone to a spring some distance away earlier to get water and were not discovered by the Indians.

The Indians took Catherine and her younger brother westward and on the third day the little boy was unable to keep up with the march. Catherine saw two Indians lagging behind with him. After a while the two again joined the march. The sister saw a little fair haired scalp hanging to their trophy belt and recognized it as being that of her little brother. She knew then that he had been killed. Catherine was held captive for five years but was not unkindly treated. As stated above, she was traded to French-Canadians, who took her to Canada where she remained two years.

Finally returning to Pennsylvania, she found her mother [and sister] dead and the cabin home abandoned. She remained with friends there until her marriage with George Goodman in 1756. Six children were born to them, four sons and two daughters. In 1798, Mrs Goodman, then 66 years old, came to Ross County, Ohio with her son John, who took up land in what is now Green Township.

His mother recognized the places where she had lived when a captive of the Shawanese Indians. She had brought with her a left handed sickle made for her in Berks County in 1757. On this sickle, is cut the name of R. W. Shaw, possibly the name fo the man who made it. (The sickle is in the possession of Alice Goodman of Kingston, Ohio.) With this implement, the aging pioneeer helped to clear a spot which she recalled as one of the scenes of her Indian captivity. Here she lived and died, and at her request, she was buried on the spot she had cleared. A monument has been erected by her descendants, who still live on the original tract, to mark the last resting place of a pioneer mother whose strange experience has seldom been equaled.

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Ohio Cues, PERSI: OHCU, Volume 23, Issue 1, October, 1973.

OHGenWeb NOTICE: In keeping with our policy of providing free information on the Internet, data may be used by non-commercial entities, as long as this message remains on all copied material. These electronic pages may NOT be reproduced in any format for profit or for presentation by other persons or organizations.
Persons or organizations desiring to use this material for purposes other than stated above must obtain the written consent of the file contributor.
This file was contributed for use in the OHGenWeb Ross County by: Cheryl Wise
You can find her story at http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~ohross/articles/catherine_gougar_goodman.htm

Comments anyone?

How are you doing with your Visiting Teaching for this month? Do you have your appointments made? Do you know what the lesson is about for this month?? Here is a clue.... you can find the message here:

http://www.lds.org/library/display/0,4945,2044-1-4844-1,00.html

In keeping with the Pioneer and Ancestor theme, I copied one of the quotes from the July 2009 Visiting Teaching lesson that seemed to me to fit in rather well.

"President Howard W. Hunter (1907–95): "Let us hasten to the temple as frequently as time and means and personal circumstances allow. Let us go not only for our kindred dead, but let us also go for the personal blessing of temple worship, for the sanctity and safety which is provided within those hallowed and consecrated walls. The temple is a place of beauty, it is a place of revelation, it is a place of peace" ("The Great Symbol of Our Membership, " Tambuli, Nov. 1994, 6; Ensign, Oct. 1994, 5)."

I would love to hear from you about this or any other stories you have to share about the visits you make each month. Please feel free to comment in the section below. Thanks! Katie G.

July 7 - Elizabeth Case Milam Wheeler

For the link to the story of the life of this wonderful pioneer woman, please copy and paste this link to your address bar.
http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~nwa/mormpio.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~nwa/wheeler.html&usg=__MptXhG3lF4UKP8WuT1JUB0nT_eY=&h=238&w=288&sz=33&hl=en&start=4&tbnid=8p3Bz41PsLYPqM:&tbnh=95&tbnw=115&prev=/images%3Fq%3DMormon%2BPioneers%26gbv%3D2%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG

July 6 - Pioneer Recipes

To go to the links to find these pioneer recipes, you will need to copy and paste the link in the address bar. Enjoy your reading. Katie G.

You can find the following Pioneer Recipes by going to this link http://library.lds.org/nxt/gateway.dll/Magazines/Friend/1975.htm/friend%20july%201975.htm/pioneer%20recipes.htm?fn=document-frame.htm&f=templates&2.0

Buttermilk Doughnuts-“Pioneer Recipes,” Friend, July 1975, 40 (President Brignam Young enjoyed this pastry)
Apple Candy
Bread and Milk - President Wilford Woodruff often enjoyed this.
Old-Fashioned Muffins - Horseshoe Cookies
Johnnycake - A favorite dish of the Prophet Joseph Smith.
Washboard Cookies
Toasted Spicecake
Pioneer Hardtack
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Homemade Butter - I found this cute blog that shows the process for making homemade butter in a jar. go to http://crunchychickencooks.blogspot.com/2008/02/handmade-butter.html

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I found a cute cookbook that you can read portions of it online called "Log Cabin Cooking" and you can find it at this link http://books.google.com/books?id=B-RtAYTwJ1sC&dq=Pioneer+Recipes&printsec=frontcover&source=bl&ots=FGTRVaeAoK&sig=BZjRvHZf9UCAhzj4vs3qJXkQg5U&hl=en&ei=gf1QSoe5A4WosgPRp9CqDQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=10

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Pioneer Soap
106 ounces rendered fat, or tallow, or combination of both
14 ounces lye
41 ounces cold water
NOTE - If you use rendered kitchen fat you may opt to add fragrance to minimize the cooking odors.

If you want a variety of other types of soap recipes go to http://waltonfeed.com/old/old/soap/soapreci.html

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You can find more of the Pioneer Recipes found below by going to this link: http://library.lds.org/nxt/gateway.dll/Magazines/Friend/1978.htm/friend%20july%201978.htm/pioneer%20recipes.htm?fn=document-frame.htm&f=templates&2.0

Honey Candy
Pioneer Lettuce Salad
Rice in Cream
Molasses Candy

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Even More Pioneer recipes found at this link: http://library.lds.org/nxt/gateway.dll/Magazines/Friend/1993.htm/friend%20july%201993.htm/kitchen%20krafts.htm?fn=document-frame.htm&f=templates&2.0

Nauvoo Ginger Cookies
Homemade Butter
Old-Fashioned Pickles

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Now if all these Pioneer recipes aren't enough for you, then go to the following link and you will find all kinds of recipes and even more fun things. thttp://waltonfeed.com/old/old/index.html

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Yet even some more recipes that you have not yet seen go to http://www.footnote.com/page/1782_mormon_pioneer_cooking/

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