MARTHA ELIMINA PACE PEARCE by Ruth Roylance

This sketch is written in the first person almost verbatim of the account she herself wrote in 1923.

"I have been urged by my daughter Ruth to write a few of the things I can remember of the experiences of my early days in Nauvoo and the early days of Utah.

I was born at Shelbyville, Illinois, April 15, 1840. I was six weeks old when my parents, James and

Lucinda G. Strickland Pace, gathered with the saints at Nauvoo, where my father took a very active part.

He worked on the temple in the daytime and stood guard half the night. He was one of the police.

I remember of going often with my older sister to take my father's dinner while he was working on the temple. I remember seeing the Prophet and his wife, Emma, mounted on fine horses; he in his uniform on parade, holding the halter strap of her horse.

I remember crossing the Mississippi River on, a flat boat in February, 1846, in the night time with a company of Saints. From there we traveled with ox teams, having left a comfortable five room home in Nauvoo, and all the furniture and things we could not get into two wagons. However, we traveled to Pisgah, Iowa. My mother was sick all the way. Upon arriving at Pisgah, my father built a log house and planted a garden, but had not got the door and windows in when he and my brother, Byram, a lad of fifteen years, went with the Mormon Battalion, and left my mother and five children in this unfinished log house with quilts the only substitute for door, windows, and fireplace.

All of the breadstuff we had was a small sack of corn meal. But the way was always opened for us, that we never suffered more than we could bear.

Brother Charles C. Rich was set apart to visit the wives and the families of the soldiers, and we looked upon him as our guardian angel. He was always so full of faith and comfort. He said if we would obey counsel and live near the Lord, we would live to see our husbands, fathers, and brothers, and live to go to the valleys of the mountains. His council was not to kill the snakes and they would not likely hurt us, If they should sting us, we were to call on the Elders and anoint with Holy Oil and they would surely live.

I knew one sister who was out in the garden picking string beans. She sat her one year old baby down beside her. He was bitten on the leg by a rattlesnake. Her husband and another Elder anointed with Holy Oil and asked the Lord to heal the child. Their prayers were answered and the child was healed.

Many times there were snakes in our house. Of course, one at a time. My mother would say, "Children, get Out of the way" and with her broom she would gently push, "shew,"the snake out of the house. It would go rattling out, seeming as glad to get away as we were to get rid of it. We were never harmed by a snake, although that section of the country seemed to be over-stocked with the horrible things.

In the fall of 1847 we moved from Pisgah to Winter Quarters, and in December my father and brother came home, very nearly starved to death. Their rations had given out days before.

An incident that occurred at that time is well worth telling. When those weary, returning soldiers reached the river there was no bridge. They had no tools nor material to make any sort of boat or raft, and they were nearly starving. The weather turned cold and colder. In a very short time the river was frozen over and the poor, footsore, starving pilgrims were able to cross the river on foot on the ice.

Soon after my father and brother came home, we moved to St. Joe, Missouri, where they both got work and saved enough to get an outfit to come to the Valley. And in the early spring of 1850 we began that long march across the plains with ox teams. We were very well fixed, we thought, for the trip. We had three wagons with all our earthly possessions in them. And, oh, we were happy and thankful our lives had been spared. We had a good outfit and were going to the land of freedom where we never would be driven or mobbed again. There were fifty wagons in our company. They would form a corral at night where they turned their cattle and stock loose.

We burned buffalo chips instead of wood. When our supper was over the bugle would sound for prayers. We would sing the songs of Zion and thank the Lord in all earnestness for our many blessings.

There were quite a number of young people in our company. Several could play the fiddle, flute, clarinet, etc., and many times when camped on a grassy level spot, would go forth in the dance. And, oh, how I wished I was large enough to join them. I was only ten years old at that time.

I remember seeing large herds of buffalo. The men would follow and kill some and bring them to camp, which helped our supplies and was splendid meat.

The company would lay off over Sunday to rest and have meetings whenever they could find a suitable place for grass and water for the stock. But many times we would have to travel on, though sometimes we would stop and have a general wash day.

In October 1850, we arrived in Salt Lake City, and as the custom was then, father reported to President Brigham Young, and said, "Here I am. Where would you have me go?" President Young studied a minute or so, then said, "You had best go up to Peteetneet Creek, five miles south of Spanish Fork." We landed at Peteetneet on October 20, our family and two other families, A. J. Stewart and family and Courtland Searls and family. All the improvements made over the sagebrush was the old wickiup of old Chief Peteetneet. No houses to rent, no lumber to be bought at any price, if we would have had the price, which we did not have.

All the way we had of getting a shelter was for the men to make roads into the canyons, get out logs and build a house. That was soon done and that winter there were several new families came and we had quite a little town started. By spring President Young came to visit us as was his custom to visit all the settlements to council and cheer the people up. While there he named the town or fort Payson in honor of my father.

On April 2, 1857, I was married to J.D.L. Pearce. My brother, Sidney Pace, and Mary Jane Fairbanks were married on the same day. In the fall of that year my husband was called to go to Echo Canyon to assist in guarding against the invading army of the U.S. known as Johnston's Army which was sent out as we understood to drive us from our homes. My husband was gone nearly all winter.

In 1861 we were called to go and help build up Southern Utah. We made our home in St. George, went there in 1862 with three little children. We lived there many years. Nine other children were born to us. Three died in early childhood. But we raised five sons and four daughters in that hard country.

My husband, being of a military turn of mind, and the Indians were troublesome, he was called Out many, many times to go and guard the lives and property of the country. He spent the season of 1867, the ending of the Black Hawk War in San Pete County. For that service I am now drawing a pension of $12 per month which was granted me after my husband's death.

When the St. George Temple was built we helped a little. My husband worked at the Stone Quarry while I prepared meals for ten men. We drew our supplies from the tithing office. But through all of our trials and hardships of our pioneer life, I always had a testimony of the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and wish we could have done more. Have lived a temperate life, very little tea and coffee and less medicine.

In February, 1909, my husband died and for the last few years I have lived with a daughter in Idaho.

Just another thing I wish to tell. I can remember very well as a child going with my sister-in-law, Epsey Pace, upon Provo River and helping her with many others gather what was called "Honey Dew," a sort of sweet honey substance that fell upon the willows and other bush or shrubbery along the banks of the river. We would break the branches, wash off the sticky substances into vessels of water, then boil the water down and a sweet syrup was the result. You could boil it down until it would become a cake of sweetness somewhat resembling maple, which was very satisfying, and came, as we believed Heaven sent to satisfy our craving for sweets which we were unable to get at that time.

This ends the little account that my dear mother wrote with her own hand a few years ago. Now I just wish to add a little tribute to our beloved little mother. Through all of her life of trial with the rugged elements, which all of our pioneer ancestors had to overcome in common, and, as my father was so often away from home in public life, the greater responsibility of rearing so large a family rested greatly on her too-willing shoulders. And through her tireless energy and capable ministrations, she had the wonderful ability to make every one happy and more comfortable who came to her home.

Her sense of humor and undaunted courage helped her to maintain her cheerful, optimistic disposition under trails that would have overcome a less noble character. She was always very ambitious and in her later years devoted much of her time in nice needlework and every child and grandchild has one or more articles of her handiwork. She lived a righteous, honorable, upright life. She worked in Relief Society wherever she was. She was the president of the Primary Association in the Washington Ward for many years. She was always happier in her home life than in public capacity. She died as she had lived, a patient, beautiful, meek spirit effacing herself, always considering everyone else before her own personal desires. She passed away at the home of her daughter Millie McCullough on the Provo Bench, January 30, 1925, after an illness of several weeks of cancer, tenderly nursed by her daughter, Nannie Barron, assisted by the three daughters. Peace, Peace to the soul of a noble woman.