ANNA EVANS JENKINS
I wish I had known
my courageous grandmother because my knowledge of her comes from family records
and conversations with relatives. She was born 13 June 1820 in Merthyr
Tydfil, Glamorganshire, Wales to Evan Evans and
Esther Jones, natives of Cardiganshire. They were married there 12 February 1810 in the ancient
parish church of Llanwenog which was built in
1350. On the left of the path going toward the entrance is the grave of her
Grandparents, John and Esther Evans. He died 27 November 1829 at the age of seventy-three and Esther
died 21 April 1851 at the
age of ninety-four years. Still legible on the small blue stone is the name of
their home, Maes-y-rhydiau bychain,
meaning meadow by the little brook.
People from all
over Wales and many
from England
and Ireland
came to Merthyr Tydfil
during the Industrial Revolution. Iron and coal had been found in abundance and
strange to say that city became the iron and steel capital of the world at that
period. In Georgetown, the working
class district, one could read the newspaper at night by the light from the
molten ore coming from the blast furnances. Hirwaun, Dowlais, Tredegar, Ebbw Vale, and Rhymney were not many miles away and in each place iron
works were established.
It was a great
change for the Evans family to leave the rural countryside of Cardiganshire
with its rolling green hills and sheltered valleys and the farms which were
separated by rock walls or hedges in which flowering shrubs and plants of many varities grew. They didn't easily adjust to the grime and
dirt of Merthyr Tydfil.
Grandmother's father became a mine burner.
At age twenty-two
Anna married David Jenkins who had come from Landore,
Swansea, a seaport and
metallurgical center. They were married 19 November 1842 in the Independent Chapel, Bethania, on the edge of Dowlais.
Her father signed the certificate as one of the witnesses.
In about two years
after marriage both of them were converted to Mormonism. Grandfather Jenkins
went tracting after work. He marked the verses he
wished to discuss in his Welsh Bible which is still in the family as of 1968.
It became their goal to emigrate to Utah
so he took work where the wages were highest making it necessary to move about
as the family increased.
On May 10, 1852 there was an explosion
in the mine at the Middle Duffryn Colliery near the
old canal at Cwmbach, Aberdare.
It was one of the Powell holdings and they had been warned to stay away from it
but the pay was higher there. Sixty-eight men lost their lives among them my grandfather.
He was thirty-eight years old and left a wife, age thirty-two, five children,
his parents, two sisters and three brothers who lived in the Llangyfelach Parish near Swansea.
(See Millennial Star
for 5 June 1852).
While in Wales
in 1951, I was taken by Mr. E. J. Hughes, a retired solicitor, to meet the
vicar of St. John's Parish
Church in Aberdare
where the burial of the disaster victims took place. Although I had a
translation of the directions from grandmother's record as to the location of
the grave we couldn't find it. It was the opinion of the vicar that there had
been a communal grave and that the services were held in the open. I was shown
the entry in the burial book taken from the vault. It was recorded on page 174
of volume five. Some victims were buried on 11 May 1852, others on 12 May. St.
John's Church was
built in 1189 during the reign of Richard I, King of England. It has been
repaired many times and the graveyard is now closed to burials. Yew trees are
common in the churchyards of Wales
and there were some very old ones in St. John's.
I was reminded of these lines from Grey's Elegy:
"Beneath
those rugged elms, that yew tree's shade,
Where
heaves the turf in many a mouldering heap,
Each in his narrow
cell forever laid,
The rude
forefathers of the hamlet sleep."
With her husband gone, everyone old enough to work had to
help earn the living. Boys entered the mines at the age of six and seven years.
My father, being large for his age, was taken for a seven year old boy, and
entered the mine at age six. He acted as a water boy and picked slate out of
coal never seeing the sun for weeks at a time. Every month Grandmother put on
her widow's bonnet and went to collect the small widow's pension. She made
smocks by hand which the miners wore working far into the night after the
children were asleep. They never went to bed without saying good-night to her.
She also took in lodgers to help meet expenses.
Later she married Thomas Williams and had three more
children: Sarah Jane, Mary Ann, who died in Wales,
and Mair. When the last one was a mere babe in arms
she put an end to this unhappy marriage by putting his clothes outside the door
and asking him to follow them.
The idea of going to Utah
had not been forgotten so in 1866 the two oldest children, David and Esther,
left Liverpool on the ship John Bright on April 30th. They arrived in New
York, 6 June
1866 under the direction of C. M. Gillet.
They were comforted in knowing that their father's sister Ann would be in Utah
to welcome them.
On 30 June 1868
Grandmother and her other children left Liverpool for New
York on the steamship Minnesota.
They were 11 1/2 days crossing. It was better than the sailing vessels but what
a contrast to steamships of today. John Parry, former president of the Welsh
District, was in charge of this emigration.
They reached Laramie, Wyoming
by train and started for Salt Lake
Valley on July 25th. They were in Captain
Chester Loveland's Company of 40 mule team wagons and 400 passengers. Many
walked over the Wyoming plains, a
distance of 400 miles. They had trouble with the Indians and had to lay over long enough to recapture the animals and kill the
savages. Salt Lake City was reached
20 August 1868 where they
were met by Uncle Davy who reported he had a rented home for them. Grandmother
was 48 years old, Evan, my father, was 19, John 17, Sarah Jane 13, Mair 10, Anna J. Martin 22, John, her husband 24 and
Catherine Anna an infant.
After greeting grandmother David
asked, "Where is Evan?" There sat my father on the driver's seat
grinning down at him. John Martin didn't want to come but they wouldn't leave
without Anna.
After a few months they decided to move to Logan
to spend the winter near her husband's sister Ann who had come to Utah
as a widow in 1856. There seemed to be no chance to find land for homesteading
around Logan; so in the Autumn of 1869 the family moved to the village
of Samaria, Idaho.
Here there were friends whom they had known in Wales.
Grandmother was especially pleased to find David W. Davis. He was a friend of
her first husband, David Jenkins, and had often worked the same shift with him.
How good it was to be greeted in her native tongue, "Anna,
croesaw i America.
Yr ydum yn
gobeithio y byddwch yn gysyrus yma."
(Anna, welcome to America.
We hope you will be happy here.) Then often as the weeks passed she was asked,
"Sut aeth eich siwrne ar
draws y gwastadeddau?" (How was your journey
across the plains?)
Grandmother Jenkins was the first woman to come to this
village as head of a household. They spent the first winter in a dugout then
she and her three sons, David, Evan and John, took up land on adjoining homesteads
of 160 acres each about three or four miles south and east of Samaria.
In the first years David and Evan often went to the Utah
mines walking to Salt Lake
with a bedroll on their backs. In this way they earned money to fence, buy
livestock, farm equipment and other things the family needed. Father often told
me of the courage his mother had to live on her homestead to fill the residence
requirements and manage things while they were gone. During the confusion over
property lines, she often had to sit in meetings and sign the agreements that
settled difficult questions.
She helped herself in many ways while living in later
years in the home provided for her in the town. She kept cows, chickens, raised
a garden, and at first made yeast which she exchanged for flour. After Sarah
Jane returned from Salt Lake
where she studied dressmaking Grandmother helped her with the sewing she did
for other people. Grandmother was the first treasurer of the Relief Society and
held that position until her death.
She was sturdy of build, a good average height, had blue
eyes and very dark hair. She was forthright in expressing herself and enjoyed
laughing and talking with her friends in Welsh. One picture of her was given by
a cousin who saw her going up to help my mother at threshing time. She was
wearing a green checked gingham bonnet on her head,
her apron was made into a roll on top of that to form a ring. On this ring she
balanced a small table and was carrying two brass buckets full of water in her
hands. That old European custom died out with the passing of the pioneers.
Correspondence with her people in Wales
was maintained to the last. In one old letter it described conditions in Merthyr Tydfil
during the eighties when there was no work to be had. It asked for help in
these words, "Dear Anna if you could please be so kind to send us a few
shillings and if we can't pay you back I hope the dear Lord will for whatsoever
you give to the poor you tendeth to the Lord."
She never refused because her family had gone through hardships too. In parting
with one friend she said, "Anna please write to
us. If you have no pencil use a piece of charcoal and
any kind of paper. We will be able to read it." Uncle Daniel E. Price
visited this friend when he was on a mission to Wales
in 1895-7.
Grandmother worked hard but she achieved her goal. Her
sons could now own property, work in the open air and live among people of the
same religious convictions. Her last days were spent with her daughter Mair. She died May
13, 1889 and is buried along with her seven children in the Samaria
Cemetery.
- Esther Jenkins Carpenter, Granddaughter
