ELEANOR LLOYD GRIFFITHS
Eleanor Lloyd Griffiths was born 20 Jan 1838 at Llansillio or Llandysul,
Cardigan, South Wales, she was the daughter of Josiah Lloyd and Margaret James.
Eleanor started working in the coal mines at an early
age. Her father died while she was but
three years of age. She met a young man
by the name of John Jenkin Griffiths who also worked
in the coal mines and was already a member of the church. They were married the 16th of March 1857 in Merthyr-Tydfil, Glamorganshire, South Wales.
She was baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day
Saints in April 1857.
The great amibition of both she
and her new husband was to immigrate to Utah
to be with the Saints there. She
continued to work in the mines to help raise money for passage to America. Their first child, a boy only lived for one
year. She then had a little girl, Mary
Ann born in
1860 and a little boy, James Lloyd born in 1863. Their earnings were meager and the savings grew
very slowly and the wait was very long.
However it was decided that Eleanor would come ahead and bring the two
children and John would work until he could get the means to join her. Eleanor left Wales when the baby was six months
old in the spring of 1864. They set sail
May 10, 1864. The trip on water took six
weeks.
This was not easy for Eleanor, especially since she had
left Wales
with her mother-in-law's words ringing in her ears. "John will never join you,
you will never see him again!"
The trip across the Atlantic
was pleasant only for one incident that was when it was caught in a storm and
was driven about 300 miles off course and the old boat leaned over on her side
so that no one could stand on deck for three days. Can you imagine what they went through no
being able to call for help and being tossed at the mercy of the waves all the
time until the ships crew adjusted the ballast and the old ship righted itself.
Eleanor arrived along with a party of Welsh converts to
the church, including a cousin or two at Boston,
Massachusetts where they took the train to the
Missouri River. Here handcarts and wagons were amassed for
the long journey across the plains. They
came west with the George G. Bywater and Thomas E. Jerremy Handcart and Wagon company.
Mary Ann was a good child willing to ride in a cart owned
by another member of the party but little James, a robust child, was fretful
and cross and would not ride in a cart so a papoose type carriage was devised
and he was strapped to his mother's back where she carried him while she walked
those long miles. She had a very good
friend, Margaret Reese, age sixteen, who was traveling alone. Margaret traded off carrying this child. They lived together and shared all the
hardships together such as gathering buffalo chips for fuel.
Eleanor could not afford a means to ride so she walked
the entire distance from Boston to Salt Lake
over the long stretches of plains, over mountains and through rivers. It is thought that the baby was constantly
hungry as he depended wholly on his mother's milk for nourishment. Her great hardship in walking those thousands
of miles with little to eat for herself must have been
a terrible burden to her. Her faith was
strong and there were times when the going was rough that the men would strap
her to lower over the high places and pull her through the river to help her
along. They saw lots of Indians but were
not molested. Still there were plenty of
dangers, they had had to contend with the dust, the
heat and lack of water.
This party of pioneers arrived in Salt Lake City, and were almost immediately sent to
colonize Beaver County, Utah.
So with a party of Welsh people they traveled some 200 miles further
south to settle along the Beaver river at Adamsville where there were lush
meadows to farm and raise a little food from the virgin land arriving there
sometime in November 1864..
Eleanor lived in a mud dugout babies, wondering if she
would ever see her husband again. Here
when it rained everything was flooded and she had to bail the water out by buckets or pans of
whatever she had. . She eked out a
living by doing laundry for other people.
Such things as flour, molasses, dried fruit, butter, eggs anything we
could use was her pay. She made her own
candles and her own soap out of old grease.
She did all of her cooking in a fireplace in the dugout using a large
Dutch oven and a frying pan. She had few
utensils.
One spring morning approximately a year after arriving in
Adamsville, or as it was known as "Aberdare",
she was out in the yard doing laundry when she saw a man coming some distance
away walking on foot and, momentarily worried, she stood tall, being a large
woman, clasped her hands beneath her large white apron, and watched him. This man was wearing the familiar long coat
and high stovepipe hat and she knew him.
Suddenly, she threw her hands up and cried, "Oh John!" and ran into his
arms. There was a joyful reunion and
many tears as they told each other of their hardships and longing for each
other and his joy in finding his family at last.
In the years following they added six more lovely
children to they family. In later years,
hearing of the opportunities in Idaho along
the Snake River, they decided to resettle up
there. They went to Moreland, Idaho
and John worked with other settlers to chisel the canals out of lava rock that
would bring the water onto the land from the river.
John died in 1899 in Moreland, Idaho. Eleanor lived another 11 years and died in Pocatello, Idaho
in January 1911.
(From files of DUP Museum, Salt Lake City, Utah)
