Harman, William and Jane Davies - Biographies

William Harman – Brief Biography

William Harman was born 20 November 1820 in Merthyr Tydfil, Glamorganshire, Wales. He worked in the coal mines, beginning as a very young boy. In 1843 he married Ann Jones, and they raised nine children. Four years after their marriage he was baptized into the LDS Church, and he spent what time he could with the missionaries preaching the gospel. His wife and family could not see the light, and he finally left them and came to America in July 1871. He received word not long after arriving in Salt Lake City that his wife had died and that his family did not intend to join him. At age fifty-six in October 1876 he married Jane Davies Thomas, a widow. She bore him three children. William was talented musically. He was a good “soft shoe” dancer and was often asked to perform. After coming to Utah he first worked on the Temple Block in construction, and later, after the completion of the temple, in caring for the grounds. He lived to the age of eighty, full of faith to the last, seldom missing a day’s work up to ten days before his death on 31 December 1900.

Jane Davies – Brief Biography

Jane Davies, one of six children, was born 18 September 1843 in Ffynnon Tydfil, Glamorganshire, Wales. Her father died of cholera when she was eleven years old. When Jane was twenty years old she and her mother listened to the Latter-day Saint missionaries preach at a street meeting and were later baptized. Jane met Richard Henry Thomas who was also a member of the LDS Church. They came to America and were married in Salt Lake City in 1872. A child was born to them in 1873. Her husband died that same year. Then in 1875 her child died at age two. When Jane was thirty-three, on 21 October 1876 she married William Harman, fifty-six, who had joined the Church in Wales and had left his first family there hoping they would follow him to Utah. The children of Jane Davies Thomas Harman and William Harman were Richard Alfred, Gwendolyn, and Mary Annie. After William Harman’s death in 1900 she resided in Salt Lake City, a devoted member of the Church, and died there on 2 November 1909 at age sixty-six.