Mary Jones Evans

Mary Jones Evans 1827-1895

Sidney Kay Smith Creer's Great Great Grandmother

History of Mary Jones Evans, as remembered by Lillian Evans Reeder (31 May, 1982) I’d like to tell you a little bit about my grandmother, my Dad’s mother. Her name was Mary Jones. She was born in a little town in Wales by the name of Llangynnog in Carmarthenshire Wales. 

When a young girl she was taking care of children upstairs in an attic, she wasn’t suppose to be listening to the meeting that they were holding in the downstairs part of the house. It seems that the part of the house that had a loft that they climbed up to it by a ladder and that is where the children slept. She had heard about the ‘crazy morman’s” [sic] that were preaching in the vicinity, they were having a “Morman [sic] Meeting” in the house that night and she was real interested in what was going on. When she got the children to sleep, she sneaked over where she could hear, it was an open loft and all that led to it was an ordinary ladder, she lie there very quietly and listened to the Morman [sic] Missionaries. She had heard a lot about these “crazy Morman’s” [sic] and heard how they kidnapped girls and took them to Utah to be their poligomist [sic] wives, she was a little bit leary [sic] and a little bit afraid, but she still wanted to hear. Partway through the meeting one of the Elders began to speak in tongues, the other one interpreted the tongues. In this interpretation he said there is someone listening to our meeting that we do not see or hear and they will join our church and be faithful until the end of their days. My grandmother was so afraid and scared, she knew it was her and thought they had witchcraft over her. She climbed back to bed and never told any of the people that it was her that was listening. The next day when she was helping do the dishes and clean up the house, she was acting as a maid that day, they all said, “I wonder who it was, I wonder who was listening, it must have been someone from another world, they must have been listening to our meeting and they are going to join the church eventually, maybe it is somebody who hasn’t been born yet, maybe it’s this or that.” But, she knew it was her and she never did tell that it was her listening. The woman who’s home the meeting was held in latter apostatized from the church, but the little girl who was acting as a maid that day, joined the church. Her folks were real unhappy about it, her mother felt so bad when she decided to go to Utah. 

There hasn’t been very much that I’ve heard from the time she heard them talk in tongues, then when she was baptized, and when she was ready to go to Utah. One thing I have heard is that they held their meetings and there was lots of persecutions. She wore a white apron, as the Welch people do a lot, and the kids on the outside were teasing them and threw horse manure through the window at the people that were having their meeting. My grandmother gathered up a lot of this horse manure in her apron and chased these kids up the hill and rubbed their faces in it because she was so mad. So, she hade a lot of spunk. They say that grandmother was a beautiful woman. She had long black hair and coal black eyes. My father was kind of red headed and blue eyes, he didn’t get the black eyes and the dark hair of the rest of the family. 

The man she married had dark eyes to [sic]. It’s a wonder that some of our family didn’t inherit the coal black eyes. Dad and mother both had blue eyes and none of the kids got these coal black eyes from the Evans and Jones family. When my grandmother went down to the boat her mother went with her begging her every step of the way not to leave their beautiful country and go on a long trip over the ocean. She went anyway. She asked her mother when she got near the boat to give her a lock of her hair to go in her locket and that would be something she could remember her by. Her mother said, “it’s bad enough for you to be going to hell without taking a lock of my hair with you.” With those words she turned on her heals [sic] and walked back toward her home. My grandmother never saw her mother again. 

She got on the ship and left for Utah. (I’m not sure if she knew my grandfather before that, his name is Abel Evans. He was a missionary for years and Wales is a very small place, they could have known each other before this time.) They were courting on the ship. They landed at some port for supplies and there was a fire on shore. All the people went to see the fire, my grandmother and grandfather were a little later than they should have been getting back to the boat. The captain of the Mormon’s told my grandfather that he wasn’t setting a very good example to the young people there by going off away from the crowd and not come back. They were under orders to obey the rules, evidently they did not obey the rules. He said, “If you want that girl you had better marry her.” The story goes that they got married. We have been unable to find any record of where they got married, on board ship, of when they landed at New Orleans. They left Wales in 1850 and got to the Salt Lake Valley two years later in 1852. In the meantime they had a little girl they named Elizabeth who died someplace in Nebraska and she was buried in Potawamenee county, Nebraska. 

She was pregnant with her second baby when they reached Lehi. The next record of them is being seen about 80 miles from Salt Lake City. They were traveling with a mule train. They had one mule, one horse and a cow hooked onto the back of their wagon. When they arrived in Salt Lake City. Brigham Young told them they needed a Blacksmith in St. George. They set off for St. George with my grandmother seven months pregnant with the mule, the horse and the cow. Their first overnight stop was in Lehi, UT. My grandfather’s name was Abel Evans and it happened that the bishop of Lehi, UTG was named David Evans. He took quite a liking to my grandfather, Abel Evans, asked him where he was going….Of course with the two men who could speak Welch and they were thrilled to death to meet each other and speak their own language. Abel Evans told the bishop that he was on his way to St. George, that Brigham Young was sending him down there to be a Blacksmith. The bishop, David Evans, said we need a Blacksmith in Lehi, you’ll stay right here and I’ll take care of Brigham Young, I’ll answer to him. So they settled in Lehi. 

My grandmother built one of the original little house that was hooked up to the fort wall. He was one of the night watchman to police the area. The baby Abel John Evans, was born two months after they arrived. Grandmother didn’t have anyone with her when she was in labor that could speak the Welch language. She never did master the English language very well, but enough to get by on. (This was in 1852). 

The story goes that grandmother is the one who received the letter from the church headquarters asking her husband to take a second wife in polygamy. They used to do that, they kind of called them like they would a missionary, they would call him to take a second wife in polygamy. (This story can’t be varified [sic]) She evidently opened his mail, seeing what the call was she didn’t know if she could face it or not. She felt that was asking quite a bit. She went to the orchard and prayed for God to give her strength that if this was to be, that she would be able to accept it. Evidently she was given the strength because my grandfather took two more wives. 

In 1854 she had another child and named him William Samuel Evans. Next was Aunt Sarah Sabey the rest of the children were given her maiden name of Jones as their middle name. My father’s name was Hyrum Jones Evans. There was Sarah Jones, Mary Jones, Catherine Jones who we all loving called Aunt Cass. How we idolized Aunt Cass. My father was born in 1864 at Lehi, UT. He was the youngest of the children by this wife. He had other children about the age of my dad, but they were by his other two wives. My dad had a half-sister named Janie that he idolized. She was easy going and a happy lady, easy to get along with. When the children were little my father said they were playing and had Aunt Janie’s very best dress and were playing dress-up as children will. Him and his little sister Janie were playing and someway they got the dress in the fire. In those days they couldn’t just run to the store and get another dress. My grandmother was ready to whip the tar out of my father and Aunt Janie said no I don’t want you to whip Hyrum. Janie was as much responsible as he was. If you whip him I’ll have to whip Janie, it’s going to be punishment enough for these children when they find out that I can’t go to church because if haven’t anything to wear. From then on, those women only went to church every other Sunday, because they only had one skirt and one “baske” (?) between them. They would take turns wearing the outfit every other Sunday until they were able to get more clothes. 

When my father was only six months old their father, Abel Evans, was called back to Wales on a mission. He had three wives and this little brood of children, each wive [sic] had some, he went back to Wales without purse or script to preach the gospel. My grandmother at the helm, these women managed by dividing the work, each doing their own share. These sturdy farm women were used of working and kept the farm going. My grandfather died on his mission. My grandmother carried on until the youngest wife, Janie died, she took her youngest child and raised. The second wife, Martha, was married off to someone and Janie died so grandmother was a lone [sic]. When my father was about 14 years old the rest of the family had left the coop with the exception of my father and Aunt Cass. Grandmother then married Isaac Chelton, he was always very good to her, he seemed to idolize her. My father and him didn’t get along to [sic] well, father was grandmother’s pride and joy and her baby. It didn’t take long for my father to decide he wanted to leave home, the old man felt awful bad. I remember that old man, we used to call him Grandpa Chelton. He had a long beard and a cane when I was a little girl, he used to come to our place and call on my mother and dad. We all called him Grandpa. Grandmother died before I was born.

(I’d like to add a little to this, I’ve been talking to my sister Mary) Today is Decoration [sic] Day 1982. We always have our Family Reunion on Decoration Day. My sister Mary is 89 years old and she told me a few things about my grandparents that I didn’t know anything about.

She said my grandmother done the managing, run what they called the Stockyards. They owned a piece of propery [sic] across the street from where they lived, they sold hay and grain, Porter Rockwell along with Indians used to stop there a lot [sic] at their stockyard. The youngest wife Janie was a beautiful sewer and she made the christening clothes, just one outfit that the babies were blessed in, my father included. Mary said she remembered that dress and it was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen in her life. Mary said that the Indians came and wanted to buy my grandmother. They brought a string of horses and said they would trade a string of horses to her husband for her and she run them off, they came back with more horses. She finally told them she would get help if they didn’t leave. She was a very, very brave woman. 

My grandmother was born the 1st of August in Llangynnog in Carmartthenshire, Wales. She married sometime around 180, she died the 3rd of April 1895 at Lehi, UT. 

When my grandfather left on his mission, it was hard for grandmother to keep the children in Sunday clothes, she had a great big family to be responsible for. My dad told me that his two older brothers went to gather wood in the hills and they would be bare footed and sometime it was in the snow. They would gather wood, the oldest was only 12 and the other 10 when their father left. They would get wood in their bare feet in the snow and bring it in for the winter. These boys worked awful hard. Grandmother had promised grandfather before he left on his mission that she would see that one member of that one member of that family got to Sacrament Meeting every Sunday of their lives. So she rigged out the oldest son, who was old enough at this time to be the first in the priesthood and she wanted the priesthood in her home, she saw that he got to church every Sunday of his life. That was Abel John Evans. It paid off because he was in the Stake Presidency of the Alpine Stake for years. He was later a Patriarch, he was a very, very good man. They were all good people, but Abel John did go farther in the Church than any of the rest of them. Grandmother was very successfull [sic] with her family. I loved all my aunts and uncles and they were good to me, had good personalities. My father could keep you spellbound with stories of his youth and the things that happened to him. The other family members had nice personalites [sic] and could entertain some even singing, but my father couldn’t sing, although he would try and I loved to listen to him sing.

I hope I’ve told a little bit of interesting things about her, my grandmother’s life. I don’t think there has been anything written about it up until this date. I have never found one thing written about my grandmother, only things that I have head people say.