This is Ione's Grandmother's sister
Biography of Annetta Lucinda Clifford Wilson
I was born
at Providence, Cache County, Utah, March 29, 1863, the third daughter of John
Price and Mary Lois VanLuven Clifford. I
had six sisters and one brother. My
parents were among the first of the Saints that were called upon to pioneer and
settle Cache Valley. My father was one
of the Mormon Battalion and also an Indian Interpreter and could speak the
language fluently. They moved from
Brigham City, Box Elder County, Utah to Providence, before I was born, and
remained there until 1876.
I was
almost fourteen years of age when we moved to Clifton, Oneida County,
Idaho. Before going to Clifton, I was
baptized and confirmed a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints.
Prior to
this time while still living in Providence, I had a very bad sick spell, which
resulted in my throat becoming very sore, and my jaws were locked so tight that
I could not even get a knife blade between my teeth. It continued to be so for three or four
weeks. My father administered to me and
my little sisters prayed for me. They
did all they could to relieve me, but it was so slow and painful. Sometimes I thought I could not endure the
pain. One day my uncle told them to
poultice my neck with coal oil and fat meat, which they did, and the pain and
swelling was gone almost in a day or two so that I could begin to get my finger
between my teeth.
When about
sixteen years of age, I went to help Joseph Wilson’s wife, Lerona Monroe
Wilson, one of our old neighbors that had been our neighbor before we had left
Providence. They moved from Providence
to Clifton soon after we moved there.
While staying with Lerona Wilson and her husband, I became acquainted
with her husband’s brother Oliver, who had at that time met with an accident
while cutting timber for the Logan Temple, and had injured one of his
legs. We became attached to each
other. His mother was a widow and he was
obliged to take care of her, as his other brother was also a cripple. Oliver left Clifton and went with his mother
and brother to Arizona. He stayed there
for about four years. I never seemed to
care for anyone else, nor did he.
After he
had been in Arizona three or four years, he wrote to me to see if I was
married. No one knew that I had been
praying for my absent lover to return, if he was not married or if his love for
me had not changed, so I wrote and told him that I was still single. We began writing to each other. He also composed some beautiful verses and
sent to me, which we learned to sing together, and also about which I will have
more to relate farther on in this sketch of my life.
He came
from his Arizona home on the Gila River in the fall of 1882. He arrived in Gentile valley where I lived at
that time. I had moved there with my
parents in 1880.
Shortly
after his arrival, we were married on October 3, 1882 by Bishop Robert
Williams, a minister of the Gospel. On
November 9, 1882, we went to Salt Lake and received our endowments. We bought a little farm in Gentile Valley,
but with us it was quite a struggle. We
did not have the necessary implements to run a farm, and my husband’s health
was quite poorly, owing to the change in climate.
In July 23,
1883, our eldest child was born. We
named him Oliver Elbert. When he was
about six months old we sold our home in Gentile Valley for a team and wagon
and moved to Logan. We stayed there
until about October when we started to go back to Arizona, as my husband
thought he could do much better there than in Logan. We put what few household effects we could
carry, along with dishes, fruit and some potatoes also a pig that we had killed
and salted down. We had our wagon fixed
with projections, so that we could put our bed on slats and trunks and other
necessities underneath. It seemed a
great undertaking to me to start on this journey so late in the fall with our
wagon loaded and just one small team of horses.
But we had faith that we would accomplish the journey all right, which
we did, but we were two long months in the wild and storm.
Just after
leaving Panguitch, Utah, we met a young man and his wife and another older
Lady. The young couple also had a young
baby about two weeks old. The young man
had been on a mission and had only been home about a year and was again called
to go to Arizona to help colonize that part of the Lord’s vineyard. The young wife seemed to think that was
almost too much to expect from them so soon after her husband had already been
away from home so long, but they started out and trusted in the Lord to take
care of them.
Two or
three days afterwards, while we were traveling on our journey, we stopped at a
little store to get some necessary supplies.
Those people bought some coffee, about two pounds. We traveled about ten miles farther on before
camping for the night. When the older
lady went to roast the coffee to prepare it for their supper, she saw in
looking it over, a ten dollar gold piece.
Then she examined the rest of the coffee and found more until she had
found sixty dollars in all in the two pounds of coffee. How it got there was a mystery. But they thought it was a gift from Heaven
and was very thankful for it. As no one
came to claim it, they of course kept it.
We left those people where the road divided and went on our way towards
the Gila River. When we got to the
Apache Mountains, it commenced to snow, and it kept getting deeper and the
mountains were so thick with tall pines and trees all around us. At last the snow got so deep that we could
scarcely go on, and the hay and grain that we had brought along with us was
almost gone. There were two young men
that were going over the mountains too that helped us to tramp the snow down so
that the horses could get through.
Finally we had to take our wagon back in the timber and leave it. Then they put the four horses on the one
wagon and we went on over and got to my husband’s brother’s place in three or
four days.
On the Gila
River in Arizona just before Christmas, we built a cabin of logs and
factory. There were logs for the corners
of the house, two logs set close together for the window and the door, then
factory stretched around and tacked to the logs. The door was of rough lumber and the roof was
brush, then straw and dirt on top. We
lived there about four years and while there, our two girls, Lucinda and
Elizabeth Mary, were born.
There two
of the children got severely burned in the fireplace. One morning about the coldest of the season,
the eldest girl and boy were out playing.
They found some ice and, of course, had to play with it. They got their fingers to aching and came in
crying. All at once I heard them
scream. I was in the bedroom making beds
when they came in crying. I ran in where
they were and there was the oldest girl right in the fireplace. It frightened me so at first that I could
scarcely move, but I jerked her out of the fireplace and in so doing I upset
the teakettle on the baby girl’s feet and legs.
She was sitting there by the first to warm her feet. To say I was frantic wouldn’t be
exaggerating. By the time I got the fire
put out on the one’s clothes and back to the one who was scalded, her woolen
stockings had held the heat until the skin came off with the stockings. A neighbor lady came in and helped me
poultice and care for them, but there were weeks of suffering for the children
and days of care and anxiety for their father and me. They suffered severely for several weeks, in
fact all winter. They still have the
scars, but through faith and the blessings of the Lord, they both recovered
without losing the use of their limbs or any defect of eyes or hearing.
From this
place, we took up a small farm near a cold spring that we thought was
wonderful, it being so cold. But we
found that we could not drink the water.
The more we tried to, the worse it was.
Then we had to haul the drinking water in a barrel about a mile from the
river. That was not so bad when there
was someone to haul it, but my husband took the measles and then the children
all took them. My second boy, Wallace,
was born at the same time and the neighbors were a long way off. The girl I had staying with me only stayed
five days, and we really suffered for water.
The Bishop came and administered to my husband when he was
delirious. From then on he was much
better and the children also were greatly improved.
A little
more than a year later, we moved to Dias, Mexico, where there was a colony of
Mormons or Latter-day Saints. There we
took us a farm and built an adobe house with two rooms. We worked hard to clear off the mosquito
brush which grew in abundance all over the place. Our stable was built of mud, like the adobes,
also the fence around the house and grounds.
My husband’s health had been bad for some time past, and he was in hopes
he would have better health here than in Arizona.
When my
second girl, Lizzie, was five years old, and Wallace about three, they were
lost from just before sundown until noon of the following day. That was certainly a shock to us, coming at a
time when I thought I had all that I could stand. But we do not know just what we can stand
until we have to pass through the deep waters.
My husband,
that morning had agreed to take a lady that was in town to her children several
miles away from where we lived. He was
not feeling very well and I would much rather he would not go, but he was owing
this woman, Mrs. Boyce, for a horse he had bought from her. Therefore, he felt obliged to go and move her
load of household goods to where she had left her children. He said to me, “Nettie, there are several
little errands I wish you would attend to, as I am in a hurry to get
started.” So I left my baby four months
old with the older children and went with him.
While I was doing those errands for him, he was loading the wagon and in
so doing he had a very severe heart attack.
I saw his team tied up and though I would speak to him before he
went. When I got to the door I saw the
Elders administering to him. He soon
recovered enough to talk to me and soon got up.
I told my oldest boy to go and see how the baby was. It was about four blocks to where we lived.
It was a
very hot day in July. We had had no rain
for several weeks, and that day seemed hotter than any other. The first thing I knew, my boy came carrying
the baby bareheaded. The baby just
looked at me and smiled a little then fainted or went unconscious. It frightened all of us, and they said he was
sun struck. We did what we could and got
the Elders for him also. But he still
continued to cramp and was in so much pain.
However, the woman we were indebted to still wanted Oliver, my husband,
to go on with the load. I begged him not
to go and leave me with the baby so sick and himself so miserable. But he said, “I must go, but if the baby
doesn’t get better soon, send a boy after me and I will come back.”
I was
worried about my other children and I could feel a storm coming up, so I asked
the boy if would go after my husband as the baby was no better, then I started
for home. When I was about a half a
block from home there was a loud clap of thunder. I heard a child cry out, and such a worried
feeling came over me. I heard a voice
say to me, “What if you never hear that voice again!” I hurried on with such a feeling of dread I
could scarcely walk. When I got to the
house not one of the children was there.
My washing was on the line. I
knew that I would have to have dry clothes for my baby, so I laid him down,
sick as he was, and went to gather the clothes in. All the while I was calling to the
children. Just as I was coming in with
the clothes, Oliver came in the door. I
told him the children were lost. He said
he thought they were coming with the cow, as he had heard the bell. But he was so weak he could hardly stand, so
I left him with the baby and went to find them.
However, I could hear two cow bells.
I was undecided as to which one was our bell. As I would start for the one, I was afraid
the other would be the right one so I ran back to the house and said, “Oh,
Oliver, which is our cow bell? I can’t
tell, and the storm is coming on very fast.”
So he went himself to look for them.
He had scarcely gone when the storm broke. Oh!
How it did rain! It seemed as
though it came in streams. In a few
minutes Oliver came in with the two oldest children. The two youngest were not with them as we had
thought they would be. We sent the
oldest boy to his uncle’s to tell him the children were lost, and to notify the
town. It was not long before there were
men and boys from everywhere all anxious to join in the search. They had lanterns and torches, but the night
was so dark and it turned out so cold that they could not accomplish
anything. About two o’clock in the
morning they had to give up the search until daylight. Then they started out again. They were to give the signal as soon as the
children were found. They were to fire
their guns and ring the curfew. But when
the time went by and no guns were heard, I began to get so discouraged and
uneasy, I just felt as though I could not endure it. Some of the neighbors were with me. They tried to encourage me. At last we heard shouting and it was not long
before they came in with the children.
It was about eleven o’ clock.
Then what a relief. No one knows
unless he has experienced something similar.
Our Bishop’s son was the one to first see them and they had lain out all
night in the storm and cold with the coyotes and wild animals all around
them. They had had nothing to eat except
the wild beans they had gathered before the storm overtook them. It was the darkest night I ever saw, and many
a prayer was rendered in their behalf.
They did not take cold or seem to have suffered in any way except the
little boy, about three years old, was just about exhausted. They had walked about three miles and then
the Bishop’s son came across them when they were going towards home as
unconcerned as could be. He asked them
where they had been, and they told him, “Oh, we just camped back there under a
hackberry bush.” Zeno Johnson, the boy
who came across them first, said in Fast Meeting that before he found them he
knelt down and prayed fervently to the Lord to guide him aright, that he would
know the right direction to take, and he would take that as a testimony that
the gospel taught by the Latter-day Saints was true and that prayers could be
answered. He got up and started in a
different direction than he had been going, and in a short time came across the
little fellow. Guns were fired and the
curfew rang to call all the searchers in, and all the town rejoiced to hear
that they had been found. The account of
this incident was published in the Juvenile Instructor either that same fall or
in the summer of 1893.
At this
time, flour was such a high price we could not get the means to buy it
with. We tried to sell our team or
anything we had for flour, but there was none to be had that we could find
without the ready cash. We had to make
bread of cornmeal and make hominy of the corn until I though I could not eat
another bite. I got so weak and hungry,
I just though I would give almost anything for a piece of flour bread. One morning, it being Fast Day, I thought I would
fast and pray that the Lord would open up the way for us to get some flour,
that I was almost starving on the cornmeal.
I went to Fast Meeting, and one of our neighbors told me that her
husband had just returned with a load of flour.
I asked if they would sell us some, and they let us have seventy five
cents worth. But that was not very much,
as flour was $6.00 per 100 pounds. Then
my husband got a chance to take loads of wheat over to the other valley and
bring flour back, and he took flour for his work, which he was very thankful to
do. We still had some of the flour he
had earned when he died. From that day
to this, I have never had to eat corn bread, which I am very thankful for.
In the year
1896, in the month of January, my husband was taken very ill with Typhoid
Pneumonia. He was so seriously ill that
I felt very concerned about him. I sent
for the Elders and had him administered to, but instead of him improving as he
always had done before, he continued to grow worse. I went out to pray for him and ask the Lord
if it was possible for him to recover, that he would heal him and make him
well, but I did not get any consoling influence or any ray of hope from my
prayer. I went in the house to change my
dress, as the one I had on was quite badly soiled. I just had one good gingham dress, as my
other house dress needed mending, and I just could not get time to mend
it. So I thought I would put on my best
dress while he was in bed. Just as I put
out my hand to take it down off the nail, a voice said to me in a loud whisper,
“Don’t you put that on! You know that it
is the best dress you have, and the only dress you have to wear to his
funeral.” I sank down on a chair
overcome with grief, for I knew then beyond a doubt that would not
recover. Just a week from that day,
about an hour before he died, I heard a voice exactly like my husband’s say to
me, “May we meet again in heaven.” He
was unconscious and could not speak, but I knew it was his desire that that
should be so. Those words were in the
last verse of the song he composed and sent to me before he came for me to
marry him. We had learned to sing that
song together to the tune of The Gypsey’s Warning. After he died, I could hear him pleading with
me to sit down by him and sing our little song, but I just felt as though I
could not do it. The people would think
I had lost my mind, but he seemed to say, “You will be helped. You will surprise yourself.” But I just could not raise the courage to do
so. Then I felt so disappointed and
down-hearted. I felt like I had shirked
at my responsibility and left something undone.
I felt that I ought to have done so that night. Finally I said, “Oliver, in the morning I
will sing our son for you before they take you away.” Which I did and I really was surprised at
myself. I did not feel afraid of
anything it seemed. I felt that he was
right there helping me. And after I had
sung the song to him, I felt as I had pleased him in doing so and that I had
accomplished something that he was anxious for me to do. For so many hours those words of the song
which we had sung together had been ringing in my ears, “May we meet again in
Heaven, where our joys will have no end.”
At the time
of his death I was left with six small children…a baby girl about 3 months
old. I was glad to procure work of
almost any kind, washing, housecleaning, or anything to help support my
children. I will not go into detail of
how we all tried to live the next five years, but the Lord was kind to us. We all lived and got along somehow, and the
Bishop was kind and like a father to us.
I have always been grateful to him and my Heavenly Father for helping me
in my hours of trial.
The Folks
wrote and wanted me to come back to Utah, and Idaho, so about the 10th
of April, 1901, I started back to my people in Utah and Idaho. My mother at that time lived in Smithfield,
Utah. My sisters, two of them lived in
Idaho. I lived in Smithfield three
years. Then I became acquainted with
William Chadwick. I married him and
moved to Franklin, Idaho. Several years after
William Chadwick died, I sold my home in Franklin, and moved to Preston, Idaho
where I still reside. I have been
greatly blessed in many ways and I thank my Heavenly Father for His kind and
watchful care and guidance.
I am now
almost sixty-eight years old. I have
five living children all married and with families of their own. And when the time come for me to leave this
earth and go to a better one, I hope to meet my husband, Oliver, and all other
dear ones, and again be reunited with them.
And again may we sing our song together, and may the beautiful thoughts
come true that “We will meet again in Heaven, where our joys will have no
end.”
Annette
Lucinda Clifford Wilson
Written by her sister, Mrs. Rosa A. Sant
Typewritten by her grand niece Orella Sant Bunce, on March
10, 1931 (First typing)
Typed on Word 2012 by her great great grand niece Stacey
Hendricks Goodman
Courtship and Marriage
Composed by Oliver C.
Wilson
1.
Down beside the Gila River
Where its water swiftly glide
How my heart with joy would quiver
If you were by my side.
2.
Oh, I’d be a happy creature
If you were with me today
But alas! That ne’er can be so,
For you’re miles away.
3.
Oh, there’s many miles between us
Thou art nearest to my heart
And I hope that the time is nearing
When we meet no more to part.
4.
How I long to see you, darling
And all sorrow cast aside
And be happy every after
When you do become my bride.
5.
Now I’ve started on my journey
Towards you now I
swiftly glide
And I pray the Lord
to bless me
With an angel for my
guide.
6.
May he shield me from all danger
Vice and folly may I
shun,
Through this world
of sin and sorrow
Till at length the
race is run.
7.
Now my journey it is over
And you have become
my wife.
And I pray that
we’ll be happy
And always lead a
pleasant life.
8.
When this toilsome life is over,
And we’ve left all
earthly friends
May we meet again in
Heaven
Where our joy will
have no end.
