Dear Relatives

NANCY ELIZABETH YOUNG VAN WAGONER

Sketch of the life of Nancy Elizabeth Young Van Wagoner by Her Daughter, Maude Van Wagoner Fisher.

My mother, Nancy Elizabeth Young Van Wagoner, was born in Henry County, Tennessee, April 6, 1839. Her parents were Alfred Douglas Young and Annie Muldine Chappell Young. When my mother was still a young child she and her parents who had been converted to the L.D.S Church, moved from Tennessee to a farm about three miles from Nauvoo. My grandfather was sent to Tennessee on a mission and while he was gone the mob came and burned their house and took the best of their belongings, which grandfather had hid in the woods near by, leaving the family destitute. Grandfather was called home from his mission. When the saints were driven from Nauvoo they were among the number who trekked their weary way across the barren wastes. They were members of the Heber C. Kimball Company and arrived in the Salt Lake Valley in 1848.

My mother who was then a child of nine, walked much of the way, and carried her pet kitten which bore the distinction of being the first feline to arrive in the valley. After arriving in the Salt Lake Valley they had to plant all the corn and wheat they had brought with them. They had to go without bread for six months and wait until the crops were harvested. Mother and the other children were helping to drive the crickets from the crops when they saw what seemed to them to be a big black cloud. It turned out to be the beautiful seagulls. They came and landed all around the children who were working in the fields—they were not afraid of the children. They would eat all the crickets they could hold and then they would go to the ditch and drink. That would cause them to regurgitate all they had eaten and then they would go back and fill up again and again. God had heard the Saint’s prayers and had sent the seagulls to help them.

Grandfather’s family moved out to a farm in Big Cottonwood Creek and they lived there until 1854 when they moved to Provo, Utah and settled in the First Ward on Second West and First South. My mother attended the schools of that day and 1855 she and Brother O. A. Glazier organized the first Sunday School in Provo.

On April 7, 1856 Elizabeth Young was married to John Halma Van Wagoner in the Endowment House in Salt Lake City. Brigham Young performed the Ceremony. She was the mother of seven children: John Alfred, Elizabeth Ann, Parley Pratt, Mary Evelyn, Frank Douglas, Stella Jane and Maude.

My mother was an earnest worker in the Church and served for many years as a Relief Society teacher. She was an expert needle woman and did much sewing for her neighbors. She was always on hand to assist in sickness and trouble. She was also an excellent nurse and spent much of her time in later years in that occupation.

She died at her home in Provo August 30, 1900, following an operation performed ten days earlier. Her sweet disposition and strength of character have been an inspiration to all who went through life with her and we feel the influence of her beautiful spirit as the years go by.

JOHN ALFRED VAN WAGONER

John Alfred Van Wagoner was born the 27^th of December 1857 in Provo, Utah County, Utah, the son of John Halmagh Van Wagoner and Elizabeth Young. He attended grade school in Provo and the Brigham Young University. He was a good scholar and an excellent penman, and kept some fine journals of his work. He might have become a teacher as he was gifted in that way had he continued his education.

At a party given by his cousin, Mary Fairbanks, in Payson he met Sarah Ellen Stark and after a lengthy courtship they were married in the Logan Temple on the 17^th of February 1886, and made their home in Provo, Utah. Nine children were born to them, six boys and three girls.

John Alfred was a carpenter by trade, and he worked whenever he could get work, but it was seasonal and he didn’t have work to do a great part of the time, although he was a very industrious person without a lazy bone in his body.

In his younger days he worked in Heber, Utah cutting ties for the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad. He lost part of one of his big toes at this work. He cut the ties by hand and hued them flat on two sides with a huge broad axe and snaked them out to the Provo River with oxen and floated them down to Provo. He also worked for the Oregon Shortline Railroad, now the Union Pacific, down in Southern Utah and Nevada as well as for the Denver and Rio Grande. At one time he worked for the Utah Copper Company at Lark near the Great Salt Lake. This was between carpentry jobs.

Their first home was a two room adobe house in the Provo First Ward. They lived there for three years and it was there that John and Walter were born. Ray was born at Grandma Van Wagoner’s. They bought a nice looking red brick house on a corner near there on the State Highway. Joseph, Louie and Earl were born there. From there they moved to the Fourth Ward and then to a red brick house where the Bonneville Ward Meeting House stood for so many years. Leland was born in this home. At that time it was still in the First Ward.

In 1899 they moved to the corner of Third South and Sixth East where they were blessed with two more children, Leah and Gladys. Gladys was born the 7^th of February and died at birth.

Things were not easy for this pioneer family of growing children, but Sarah Ellen was a good companion to John Alfred and even though his work was seasonal, she was a good manager with her cooking and sewing. Trials came to this family early. Walter lived just three months and Gladys died at birth. Just one year later John Alfred suffered a stroke that left him unable to walk excepting with a cane and great difficulty.

His son, Joe, remembers once when he was milking a cow he got mad at the cow and kicked her and broke his toe. His favorite expression when exasperated was “dad Damn”. He always would come home to see the circus when he was working up Eureka way, or near.

All during World War I he was kept currently informed of all the great events from his avid reading of the Congressional Record which his son, John, (who was Senator Smoot’s Secretary in Washington D.C.) sent him daily. He was always cheerful and jolly and the neighbors enjoyed passing by and talking with him as he was confined to his home. He died of another stroke on the 19^th of June 1918, at Provo, Utah.