ANN
LLEWELLYN JOHNS
Ann Llewellyn
Johns was born July 6, 1855
at Monknash, Glamorgan, South Wales, to David
Morgan Llewellyn and Elizabeth Morgan.
She had eight brothers and sisters, all born in Monknash, South Wales. They
were David, William, John, Thomas, Edward, Ann, Elizabeth and Sarah.
Wales
is a beautiful green country due to the abundance of moisture from the
sky. There weren't any irrigation
ditches so that eliminated ditch cleaning and the land could be farmed to the
property line, not a foot of ground was wasted.
The people took great pride in their homes, yards and barnyards. Ann was the oldest girl having three brothers
older she had to help her mother take care of the family.
There were
many different churches in South Wales. It was confusing for the Llewellyn family to
know which one was right. One beautiful spring morning two well dressed young
men with a book in their hands came walking up the path and knocked on the door
of the Llewellyn home. Ann answered the
door and the young men introduced themselves as Mormon Missionaries, She
invited them in. They explained a little
about their religion. Ann's mother said
her husband and sons were at work but she would be happy to have them come back
and have supper with them and tell the family about their religion. After a few lessons the
Llewellyn family was sure they had found what they had
been seeking. Ann was baptized February 14, 1867. Her family became very active in the Mormon
Church. They immigrated in 1869. Spanish Fork appealed to them as being a good
place to live and raise their family, so they purchased some land and built a
home.
It was a
pioneer life, everything had to be done by hand. The land was plowed with a hand plow and
horses to pull it. The boys helped their
father clear the sage brush from the land and make ditches to irrigate the
land. The girls helped their mother. Wash
day was a day to remember. The water was
drawn from an open well, put in a boiler on top of the coal range to get
hot. Two big wash tubs were brought into
the kitchen and put on chairs or a bench.
One tub had a wash board in it that was used to scrub the clothes clean. The white clothes had to be boiled and then
rinsed in two waters. It was a day’s
work. You sure earned you bread by the
sweat of your brow that day. Sunday was always
a day of rest and all attended their church meetings. There weren't many hobs here for a young lady
to earn some money so Ann went to Slat Lake City and worked for one of the
church apostles helping to care for his children and doing house work.
Ann Llewellyn
was married to William Robert Johns November 27, 1879, in the Old Endowment House in Salt Lake City, Utah. After the marriage the first house she lived
in was on 8th North and 3rd West in Spanish Fork. Here two daughters were born, Ann and Sarah
Jane. Then they moved to the north field
on a farm. She milked seventeen
cows. There weren't any separators those
days all the milk had to be put in pans and skimmed. She churned all the cream making a great number
of pounds of Butter. She carried a
basket of butter in one hand, a baby tied to her back with
a shawl and walked two miles to meet the train at the Oregon Shortline Depot in Spanish Fork where she sold the
butter. Three children were born while
living in the field. Besides the two girls,
Ann Elizabeth and Sarah Jane, were the following
children, Lily Latitia, Llewellyn, William Grover,
David Robert, Arthur Thomas, George Francis, Irene, and Ruby Lavern. She sat up until midnight many nights using the coal oil lamp to see while
she knit stockings and sweaters for her family.
Later she moved to town on 6th North and 257 West in 1890. It was a two room adobe house and later two
more rooms were added on. She raised
ducks and chickens and walked to Provo
with dressed fowl to sell to the merchants.
The feathers were used to make pillows and feathers ticks. She was the mother of ten children. Five of them preceded her in death, her oldest
and youngest dying 17 days apart. Even
with her large family she devoted much of her time to her troubles and sorrows
she always said that she was grateful that the Lord had blessed her parents
with the Spirit of the Gospel and of Immigrating to a land where they could
worship God according to the dictates of their won conscience and where they prospered
in temporal things as well as spiritual.
The first
molasses mill in Spanish Fork was on their lot just west of the house. Sugar cane was grown on the farms and taken
to the mill where molasses was made from the juice of the sugar cane. After the juice was put in vats and let stand
for a while then the top would be skimmed off.
The children from all over town came down with a little bucket to get
some of the skimmings to make candy. The syrup had to be cooked and cooled then
the children would have stretching bees-one on each end to stretch it and one
in the middle to twist it like a rope.
This would be their winter’s supply of candy.
There was
pickle factory down by the D and RG Railroad.
Cucumbers were raised on the farms and brought to the factory in
wagons. The cucumbers were washed then
put in large vats with layers of slat and cucumbers and water. When the bat was bull teenage boys were paid
twenty-five cents a day to tromp the cucumbers with their bare feet. After this treatment the cucumbers were
washed and taken to Provo
to go through the finishing process.
Every family
had a lot large enough to raise all the fruit and vegetables the family needed. Pigs were raised for the supply of meat. Fresh meat in the winter and salt cured for summer.
When the wheat
was harvested in the summer it was taken to the flour mill and made into flour,
cream of wheat cereal and bran and shorts for the pigs. It was a year’s supply.
Ann was a good
cook always having plenty of cakes, pies and cookies in the pantry. It was the children's delight to get cookies
out of a big stone crock.
Ann always
accepted her callings in the church. She
was a MIA teacher when Spanish Fork was just one ward. She was a Counselor to two Primary Presidents,
teacher in the Relief Society and was director over the quilt making. Preparation meeting for all the organizations
was held in the Payson Tabernacle. Horse
and buggy was the only means of transportation.
Ann was always
helping the sick and needy. She
delighted in taking sick children little surprised tucked in her clean apron.
Ann died December 16, 1933 and was
buried in Spanish Fork, Utah.
