Mary Ann Davies Hughes
Mary Ann
Davis Hughes, the daughter of David William Davis and Charlotte Nott Jeremy, was born August 30,1856
in Pottsville, Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania. Her parents were converts to the church in Wales and immigrated
to this country with their first baby. Mary Ann was the second child
in the family of seven children, three boys and four girls. The family worked
their way west and eventually settled in Samaria,
Idaho in May of1868.
She
married Lewis Hughes December 1st, 1875 in Brigham City, Utah.
She had nine children, four boys and five girls. They homesteaded 160 acres in Samaria. Later they built
a two-room frame house with a shanty (summer kitchen) on the back. The house
was built quite a distance from the road in an orchard of apple and plum trees.
The children were all born here. These were the hard years. All the water had
to be carried from
the
spring about a mile a way.
There were a lot of thieving, begging Indians still roaming the
country. One time a squaw came and begged to be hidden under the bed because
her husband was going to beat her.
They hid her, and he came looking, but didn't find her.
Wheat,
hay, grain and some watermelons and vegetables were grown on the farm. The neighbor
boys came down and stole some of the melons, but Dad always said, "Let them have some; they never tried to destroy any. They just
took one or two to eat."
My mother, Mary
Ann, was very good to milk cows and help father. She helped her mother, Grandma
Davis, a lot too, besides doing her own house work. One time David James was to
gather the eggs while Mother was milking the cows. He yelled and told Mother
something had reached through the straw roof and taken his hat off (he was
about twelve years old). Mother said, "Let's take all the little kids to
the house." She and David James then went back out and found a bobcat trying to catch a
mother hen with little chickens. Dave ran over to Uncle Gomer
Hughes, and he came and shot it. After it had been dead for quite a while, I
walked over and took hold of its paw; it tightened its claw on my hand, and I
had that scar for many years. At this time, Dad was working down on the Bear River Canal. Rattlesnakes and coyotes were two
more things we had to contend with.
Mother
always fed the Indians. They would sneak around the house and look in through
the windows. One morning when Charlotte
was washing dishes, they came to the house wanting a butcher knife to go down
to the lake and fish, but she didn't give it to them. We always tried to keep the
knives hidden.
One time when we had the threshers, Dad and the boys were to get
wood for the stove before they left for the field. When they came to dinner, Mother had all
the food on the table uncooked. Dad said
he was sorry and hurried and made a good fire, and Mother cooked the potatoes
and meat. It made dinner late, but you can be sure there was always wood after
this. Mother and Grandmother Davis were good cooks. They made lots of delicious
pies, including apple, plum and sometimes currant. Mother traded butter and
eggs for groceries. She put up butter in the summer for winter when the cows
might be low on milk. She took a big crock and put a sprinkle of salt and a
layer of butter until the jar was filled; then she put it in the cellar with a tight
lid, and it would keep very well. The butter was as fresh in the spring as in
the fall. She made
our cheese, too. We had a little spare room where she would keep butter, cheese
and apples.
She was a very
good seamstress and sewed for all her children. She crocheted lace about eight inches
wide for pillow cases, baby dresses and underwear. Grandma Davis could spin and
make beautiful material, though it was a little coarser than today's wool, we
had to be quite careful washing them so they wouldn't shrink. Mother always
wore two flannel petticoats, one red wool flannel and one white. The stockings
were all knitted at home.
Mother used to
help in the Relief Society in Samaria
for several years. She always took us children with her. We stopped at Mrs.
Morgan's to pick up the key; she kept it because she lived closest to the
church. When Mother sent us kids in for the key, Mr. Morgan always had some
little goodies for us.
Mother used to help Grandma
and Grandpa Davis every morning with their work as well as doing her own. Dad
used to object, saving she worked too hard, but she went anyway. All our soap
was home-made.
When Dad
was away working, I watched Mother sit in the dark many nights and watch out the
window for fear the Indians would sneak up to the corral and let the cows out
in the lucerne, where they would get bloated. Many
times they were let out. Mother would get Dave up and they would go out
together and get them back in. Mother was frightened but had to go anyway.
Finally, Dad quit work on the Bear
River Canal.
He said the money wasn't worth the hardships Mother was going through.
Mother had
a good education for her day; she could read and write, and she attended school
in Samaria. She
always helped us kids with our lessons. Mother was very religious and so were her
mother and father. Grandpa Davis always said, "Oh, dang it."
Mother and
I went to the Co-op store one time to get extra dishes for the threshers. Bill Thomas
brushed his wagon against our cart, and he tipped the cart over and broke our
dishes. There was no apology. We had to buy more dishes.
Grandpa
Davis' sister, Aunt Mary Davis Pugh, lived in Logan. At the time of the dedication of the
temple, we all went to visit her, and Dad and Mother were endowed at that time.
Aunt Mary fixed us a lovely meal, washed the dishes, then used the same dish
cloth and washed all our faces with the dish rag. We never got over that.
A Mrs. Thorpe
was the midwife for Mother, and she always used to sit in the rocker and smoke a
pipe. She used to get angry with us kids for watching her smoke.
When Mother
would leave the house to help someone, she always used to say to us, "Now
do the best you can until I get back." Mother always wore beautiful
clothes which she made herself. When Mother died, Aunt Sariah
Davis made her clothes over for us girls.
Mother and I
were going to Malad in the cart with `Old Bolly' and met a motor bike at Gwenford
mill, something we had never seen. The horse ran away and tipped the cart
partly over. We were not hurt but Dad was sure worried when the horse came home
without us.
My brother
Lewis was struck with lightning and another time was dragged by a horse that
was frightened by the Indians' bright blankets. He broke his leg which he
suffered with for many years. The doctor did the best he knew how; he was a
traveling doctor that visited every few weeks. He put Lewis' leg in a wooden
box to heal, and I can hear him crying with pain now as I look back, saying,
"Oh my leg, it hurts". Willie, another one of my little brothers, had
a pitchfork stuck in his neck while they were hauling
hay. It caused his death.
Everyone who
knew Mother said what a wonderful person she was, so kind and gentle and always
helping everyone else. She was a hard worker all her life. When a typhoid
epidemic hit, nearly everyone in town was down with it. She became run down
from helping others. She even washed their clothes on the board, and took care
of her own family. When she took it, she passed away, March 24th, 1894 at the age of forty-two.
Her oldest child, David James, was seventeen, and her youngest, Mary Ann,
was five. She had buried two younger ones, Willie, three and a half, and Ellen
Jane, seven months.
She is
buried in the Samaria
Cemetery. Dad raised the
children with the help of the older children and relatives and friends. He
never remarried. He always said, "No one can take her place." Our
family has always had a great love for each other, and we are proud to be their
descendants.
Submitted by Margaret H. Atkinson, as told to her daughter Edith
Atkinson Hadley
