"THIS SHALL BE MY TOKEN"
BY
MARY JANE BATT LEWIS
The incidents of my early life in my native Swansea have been dimmed somewhat by the passing of more than seventy years. But as they have faded deeper into the past, so have they mellowed in retrospect. Harsh realities have been tempered by time's passing, and those moments of happiness have become sublime through the deepening shadings that Autumn gives to fluttering leaves of the forest. Perhaps the courage and fortitude so necessary to sustain oneself against the painful adversities which shadowed the destinies of the Saints of Zion, has caused these memories to relieve themselves so vividly for me. I as one of them have learned the deeper meaning of faith. And now, with that faith undaunted like a banner lifted to the skies, I humbly record my life.
I was the first child born of the union of Thomas and Elizabeth Jane Bevans Batt on the 23rd of July, in Swansea, South Wales. Five years later, in 1868, my father, a younger sister, Annie, and myself, embarked aboard the masted vessel, The John Bright, for a long perilous voyage across the Atlantic bound for America and the Saints of Zion in the valley of the mountains.
Swansea was a tiny seaport on the coast of Southern Wales. It was haven and refuge for those men of the sea who lived and died with the salt of its spray upon their brows. Their life was one of the fearlessness and courage, their destiny foretold by the ceaseless roar of its billows.
By Mary Jane Batt Lewis
I was the daughter of Thomas and Elizabeth Jane Bevans. I was born on the 23rd of July, 1863 in Swansea, South Wales, left there to join the Saints in Zion in the year 1868. We came in the sailing vessel named the "John Bright", myself, a younger sister and father. We reached Salt Lake on the 18th of August 1868, after having been four months on the way...leaving our mother in Swansea with the understanding that she would come the next year.
My father was a sailor, he worked his passage across the water and hired another little mother to take care of us two little ones, and father helped when he could.
I remember one day, we had a very rough sea and our dear father had put us in a big coil of rope so that we would be safe, then he had to go to work and he came back to see us after awhile to find that a man had taken us out and got in himself - now I cannot remember what took place, but there was something doing for some time.
Well, as I say we expected my mother the next year, well one day we had camped for noon and father got a letter stating that my mother had died in July...I remember him crying with me while sitting in the wagon, but we continued to travel with the Saints to Salt Lake City. We arrived there on the 19th of August 1868. We were the first converts to leave that "branch" so when we arrived here we had no one who knew us. We were the last to leave the campgrounds, that was the "old fighting yard". The Hotel Utah is located on the groudns now.
The sun was going down and two brothers who were stone masons were passing through the camp grounds on their way from work. They were two Welsh boys, I've forgotten their names now, they took us all to their home until father found a place for us little ones to stay. He soon found work, but they were friends in need.
The next thing that I remember I was with some people in Davis County, and I think their name was Bowen. I remember one afternoon the folks brought me and my clothes to where my father was working laying track with pick and shovel... They wanted father to give me to them or they could not keep me any longer. I do not know what he said to them, but I remember the tears rolling off his cheeks, he picked up his tools and took me by the hand and we walked and walked until it was long after dark.
Now remember, I was only a little more than five years old, but I told him I could keep house for us and he could get one of our friends to bake the bread, but of course father could not listen to that, so before long, I went to live with some people by the name of Benboe. They lived at the foot of the mountain by the twin peaks east of Murray that is now. When father could come to see me and get away from his work it was at night and there were no street lights nor even streets, as we have now and he had to go by the light in the sky and peaks of the mountains to lead him to the place where I was then living.
Brother Benboe was on a mission in Swansea, he was at the home of my father and mother before we left..I understand it was this same brother who gave so much money toward the printing of the Book of Mormon.
The next I remember, I lived in Ogden city with a family by the name of Hastings, the old chap was a shoemaker. Then I lived in Ogden canyon, where the Hermatagg Hotel now stands; this all happened before I was nine years old. I was in Ogden when they built a ship and put it in the Lake at Corinne. My father helped put the ship in the lake, it was built in Ogden and was made to carry people from the east shore of the lake to Antelope Island. Eventually the boat was converted into a cafe and it was placed at the old resort of Salt Air. The old boat was destroyed by fire when the Salt Air resort was consumed by fire in 1929 or 28.
During this time my father was keeping company with a daughter of President Snow. The young ladies of the Snow family were handy at work around the dairy farm and they decided to have some fun with father. They were out to milk the cows and were doing alright, when father decided to try his hand at it but it seems he was misunderstood by the male member of the herd, the old gentleman cow run father out of the corral, and he let the young ladies to their fate, but there was no damage done.
The next place that I went to was Brigham City, and I lived with a family named Eloise Davis. They came from the same branch of the church as we did. Mr Davis was the choir leader in Swansea where we lived and he used to take me in his arms up to the choir and put me on a bench by him. I would look on his book while he was singing. When Brother Davis and his fmaily came to Zion I lived with them, and he used to teach me songs and I sang them in the parties. The names of the songs were "Swinging in the Lane", "Old Rogers", and "Jenny Jinks". The people did applaud... This all took place in Brigham City.
While I was living with the Davis family in Brigham City my father came to see me one evening and I wanted to make him a cup of tea, when the tea was brewed I found there was only one lump of sugar in the bowl, by the way, this bowl was highly prized by Mrs. Davis, and I decided to brake the lump of sugar so father and I could use it, and I accidentaly broke the bowl. I knew I would be criticized and maybe whipped for braking it so I tried to persuade father to stay until the lady came home from her work, but he could not.. I was severely criticized for breaking the bowl, she was very cruel to me.
The next time father came to see me he decided to take me to a family by the name of Hunsacker, in Brigham City. The Hunsacker family were polygamists and they had quite a number of boys who were cruel to me and made life miserable for me, and how I used to wish for my mother.
Father decided that it was too far away from him so he brought me to Kaysville, from Brigham City where I lived with a family by the name of Deschadu. This was a French family. Mrs Deschadu was the daughter of William Payne... I lived with this family two or three different times. My sister and I were baptized in Kaysvile when we were eight and nine years old.
Between times I used to go to Salt Lake and visit with father at the place he lived, and in the evenings I used to sing the old songs I had learned to sing when I was with Mrs. Davis in Brigham City. After supper was cleared away the men used to pick me up and put me on the table to do my singing, these men would all give me some coins for singing as soon as it was over I would run up the street to buy candy.
While I was in Kaysville, my father was in what is now known as Sandy, Utah and here he built the first dwelling in that town. It was a dugout, he afterwards sold it to a man named Peterson. He bought the land form LeGrand Young and Ferrimore Little, the men who took this land as a townsite.
Father married Elizabeth Ann Morris in 1873 in Salt Lake City. I was in Kaysville at this time...about 1875 we went to Nephi.
Recopied as written by
Nola Jean Stunden Rosenthal
11/07/80
8/12/90
Recopied again from document rewritten by Nola Rosenthal into electronic format by Mick Batt 8/28/99.
