James Boyack & Elizabeth Mealmaker: Sweethearts and Pioneers

Today we have a story from my maternal grandmother's side of the family. My great-great-great-great-great grandparents. Five greats. James and Elizabeth Boyack. Visual aid shows James all the way down to me, with birth years included for the males.

I decided to highlight their story today because it is one of my favorite ancestral stories. James and Elizabeth are the cutest pioneer couple ever. I swear they both came out of Scottish version of Bonanza or Little House on the Prairie. James was the definition of a hardworking, gentlemanly husband, and Elizabeth embodied straight up hardcore female pioneer power. I also share a bit with Elizabeth; the obvious being our names and we both were born on April 30th. 190 years apart. And let's admit it, I also embody straight up hardcore female pioneer power. Put me in a bonnet, give me a wagon, and call Laura my friend because we are heading west!

Ok, actually we are heading to Scotland first. To the county town of Forfar, in Angus, Scotland. Twas here on April 30th, 1805 that Elizabeth Mealmaker was born, and on August 25th, 1805 when James Boyack was born. I know I said in my last post that I was totally moving to Great Snoring in England but Forfar has it beat. One word y'all. Castles.

Forfar is just stunningly beautiful. It is surrounded by the five Angus Glens. Just green rolling hills and waterfalls. The city retains so much old Scottish architecture and has some of the most wonderful churches and chapels I've ever seen. Scattered around are these really cool things called Pictish stones which I highly recommend reading about here. Forfar is also the birthplace of the Forfar Bridie (which I attempted to make, see bottom of post) and Strathmore Bottled Water. Two castles are located near the town, Kinnettles Castle and Glamis Castle. Links: here.

Especially pleasing to me was the discovery that Glamis Castle is considered "One of the most haunted castles in Britain." According to the ever-so reliable source of mysteriousbritain.co.uk and their article on Glamis Castle, there are like 5 ghosts AND there is supposedly this secret room where the hideously deformed son of the 11th Early was bricked up in and he became some sort of monster boy who lives for hundreds of years and eats goats and stuff. And then I discovered that Forfar has this reputation in the 17th century for burning a butt load of witches whose ghosts still haunt the town. Definitely Elisabeth approved.

Not that it has anything to do with the Boyack's, but it's interesting to understand where they come from nonetheless. ANYWAYS...There isn't a whole lot of information on James or Elizabeth's childhood, but I would like to share a story told by their granddaughter, Ida Whiting:

"It happened one day when James was taking out a young girl, by the name of Elizabeth Mealmaker; at a carnival or fair which they gone to. A gypsy fortune teller told him and his sweetheart that they would marry and have a large family, that they would cross the ocean and in their old age they would have a house, land and gold, and eat white bread. As they left the fortune teller’s booth, the girl touched the young man’s arm and said, “What a lee (lie) Jeemmy”. The fortune teller’s words seemed so impossible to them that they laughed about it as they walked away, yet all of it came to pass for them."

ISN'T THAT ADORABLE!!!! Now, Ida also mentions that no one really believed the gypsy teller actually saw the future. But she thinks that maybe that event put a seed in their minds and started a desire to cross the ocean.

In November of 1827, James and Elizabeth got married and moved to a small cottage a bit further south near Dundee, Scotland. Together they had fourteen (yes, fourteen) children. The last two were twins, and they died young of a fever. It is completely unfathomable to me what it took to support 14 kids in 1800s Scotland, and I know James and Elizabeth did not have it easy. James was a foreman, and he was considered pretty well off...but that money spread out amidst 14 kids...still rough. That led to most of the children being sent to work while quite young. Ida says "Some worked on the large farms, or estates, some in the oatmeal and other mills, and one daughter clerked in a candy shop in Dundee." James often worked from sunup to sundown. Ida again says "As he placed his weekly earnings in her hands, he often said, “yours is the hardest part to make this money go around for all of our needs."

Despite all of their hardships, the Boyack's were a highly spiritual family. They attended their parish church regularly for services. They lived plain, but happy for a long time. And then in 1845 James heard the teachings of Elder Hugh Findlay from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. He was baptized that same year, by that same man. Elizabeth was not so easily convinced, she was not baptized until 1851. Link on early missionary work in Scotland.

Like most Saints in Scotland, they faced some harshness. James and Elizabeth wanted very badly to take their family to America, and to gather to Zion with the church. But transatlantic ship passage for that many people would be unfathomably expensive. They sure tried though. James and Elizabeth sent their son, James Jr., to America to try to earn money for the rest of them. After a few months James Jr. realized there wasn't a chance he would be able to earn that much money, so he signed his family up on the perpetual emigration fund, provided by the LDS church to help bring coverts from Europe to America.


They traveled on a small boat to Liverpool, and then on April 22nd, 1855 they set sail aboard the Samuel Curling for America. I've included a picture of the passenger manifest for the ship with their names (and the name of Margery Waterhouse, the girlfriend of James Jr. who went with the Boyacks to reunite with James Jr. in Utah). Ship life was suckish. They ate the same thing over and over again. Elizabeth had a hard time with laundry, she was a bit of a rebel on board and was "often reprimanded by the crew for hanging her laundry lines in dangerous places". And once one of their sons almost fell overboard and got spanked by a sailor. But they finally landed in New York on May 27th, 1855. From there they took a train and then a steam boat to St. Louis and then another boat to Atchison, Kansas.

On August 4, 1855, the Boyack family started west in the ox team company led by Milo Andrus. They walked most of the way, saving the oxen to pull the wagon. Despite extreme sickeness on the road, the Boyack family all survived and made it to Salt Lake City on October 4th, 1855 where they reunited with James Jr.. They stayed in SLC for a very short time before moving to Palmyra, just west of Spanish Fork. All 5 of James and Elizabeth's daughters were married within a year (Ida says: all to good Scots men). In 1856 they moved the short distance to Spanish Fork.

They lived quite happily, although still plain. Local Native Americans taught James to cultivate corn and how to bring water from the canyon and the lake. James learned to hunt, and often hunted up Spanish Fork Canyon. James played the fiddle, and Elizabeth was quite the singer. Their son Alexander, the only one who didn't wed went missing (never to be seen again) somewhere in the Black Hills, and left James and Elizabeth alone in their home where they lived for several years entertaining grandchildren every chance they got.

When they grew too old to live by themselves, they moved into a room in their daughter Mary's house where they lived out the rest of their days in peace. Elizabeth died in 1886, and James in 1888. They were laid to rest in the Spanish Fork City Cemetery. Since I live so close I decided to go visit and photograph the grave with my mom and brother on July 3rd, 2015.

I also decided I had to make one of these famous "Forfar Bridie's"  which were "invented" during the time the Boyack's lived near Forfar so maybe they had one! And I wanted to taste the kind of food my ancestors might have eaten, so a quick stop at the grocery store on the way home from work and an hour in the kitchen later I whipped up some Bridie's!!!

They were pretty good tasting too. I should note that I used beef, and not the traditional lamb. Because I don't eat lamb. I also didn't soak the meet in beer...because I don't drink beer. And I used half and half instead of beef stock. And I used premade pastry dough because who has the time. But everything else pretty much yes at the recipe found here. Then I brushed it with egg to get the outside crispy and yum. I even got picky eater Riley to eat one and he loved it!!! I will say it's pretty much an old fashioned version of a meatloaf hotpocket. Hooray for traditional Scottish food!!! And thanks for reading!