Ok, so now it's been a LONG time since I've posted a story. We lost my Grandma Haun to MSA in March and between that and school and work I just haven't had time. But, I am trying to get back on track. I still don't know how frequent I will be, but hey, at least I am trying. So to make up for my long absence, I thought I would share with you one of my most favorite ancestors. And I mean favorite.Mary Ann Syer was a hardcore pioneer renegade woman. And that appeals to me greatly. I like to think that my particular badass streak comes from her.
She was born in Nacton, Suffolk, England on January 1st or 2nd. The year gets a little fuzzy because apparently she frequently "used a woman's privilege of being younger than she was" when asked. Near as I can tell, it's between 1793-1795.
Her parents were William Syer and a Mary Ann whose last name was probably Fenn but that's not official. Her mom died when she was two or three and around 1803-ish her dad remarried. William became the official wheelwright of Waldringfield. His second wife died, presumably of birth complications of a son in 1815. He remarried a third time in 1816.
I haven't been able to dig up a lot on her childhood, though several accounts I have read through all agree on one thing: she did not get along with her first stepmother. One account claims she worked as a dairy maid and sang songs to the cows to get them to make more milk.
What I do know, is she married a William Smith in 1820ish and he was a butt. Like a huge butt. A huge drunk butt who beat her up a lot. She had five little girls with him: Mary Ann, Charlotte, Emma, Percella, and Hannah. Emma was the only child to live to adulthood. Mary Ann lost Charlotte in 1823, and Mary Ann Jr, Percella, and Hannah in 1832. Three kids gone in one year must have tore mama Mary Ann apart. Whatever happened that year, she must have had enough. True fact, I havent been able to find out what happened to William Smith. He either died (I wouldn't blame her if she killed him. Who knows) or she just decided to leave his drunk butt.
Nonetheless, She and little Emma found themselves doing odd jobs for the next while until 1837 she married a pretty rich tailor names William White. He had three kids of his own and I bet Mary Ann was longing for some more kiddos. And on top of the step kids she got, she had three more kids of her own. Elizabeth (My ancestor), Barnard, and Richard. When I say William White was a pretty rich tailor I mean LOADED for the 1800s. He had a big ol' tailor shop of his very own. Then he freakin died in 1842. Poor Mary Ann. But he did leave her a lot of cash (though his sons from his first marriage got most). But she had enough.
Unfortunately, as one account puts it "A widow with some money is often the prey of an unscrupulous man." And so it was. She married a William Hill (Someone's got a thing for Williams) and he was almost a big a butt as the very first William. He basically took all her money, spent it all, and died. Well, presumably died. Again, no one is really quite sure what happened to him. And it is at this point that Mary Ann decided she aint need no man and opened her own little clothing/laundromat sort of thing. And it is here that we find one of my favorite stories, taken from the Barnard White Family Book.
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| A Fichus is like a lace shawl |
AKA, my great grandma conducted a strip search in Victorian England and I LOVE HER.
Sometimes when a person faces a lot of tragedy early on and through out their life, like Mary Ann, one tends to lose whatever since of God or religion they might have. And Mary did. She was never really religious. And then some LDS missionaries came to her door. Mary was baptized on March 11th, 1854, with many of her children to follow.
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| Mary Ann's Entry in the Horizon Passenger Log |
Now her son Barnard's only dream was to be in the Royal Navy, however he was cursed with my ancestors (and my own) continual curse of being small of stature. And he missed the Royal Navy's minimum height requirement by half an inch. Which I thoroughly believe was a higher powers doing because soon after being turned down by the Navy, some missionaries offered to take him to America so he could get his fill of the sea. And it would save Mary Anne the cost of taking him with her when she was able to cross. So she sent him off in 1855 to America where I believe he worked in a farm near New York until his mother and family where able to arrive. He was about 15 years old at the time.
Mary Ann, like most of the European Saints who wanted to come to America literally gave up almost everything. Mary Ann sold the houses she was left in William White's will. She sold her business, a 1775 china tea set, all her silver stuff, and many precious things. Finally, on May 25th, 1856. Mary Ann set sail from Liverpool aboard the Horizon, a ship filled with Latter Day Saints. I find it highly poetic that my dear Mary Ann sailed on the Horizon toward her Zion. I also stumbled on this beautiful painting by Kenneth L. Rasmussen of the Horizon docked at Liverpool. I adore it.
Elizabeth White, Mary Ann's daughter and my ancestor, remarked in her autobiography that "We had a pleasant voyage with the exception of one storm. We had three deaths and three weddings. We had 856 passengers on board, all of the Mormon faith" They landed in Boston on June 20th, 1856 where Mary Ann was reunited with her son Barnard, who she exclaimed had gone from a boy to Man. From Boston, they took a train 1500 miles to Iowa City. Which was less pleasant than the ship according to Elizabeth, in a car with no seats and crammed like sardines. From Iowa City they walked 4 miles in the rain to a Mormon campground, and then traveled with their wagons to Omaha, Nebraska.
All was relatively still ok until they came to the last crossing of the Platte River. And then it started to get cold, and they still had to cross. I would like to point out that at this time Mary Ann was around 63, Elizabeth was 18, and Barnard was 16."In a few days we caught up to the Martin Handcart Company and many of them were getting quite worn out. The weather was fair and we got along quite well until we were well up the Platte River. Then the weather turned cold and stormy, and the handcart company was on one half rations. We were about 400 miles from Salt Lake City. The poor souls were giving out every day and laying their bodies down by the wayside." -Barnard
"It was getting cold. We finally reached the last crossing of the Platte River. Our company camped on the east side and the handcart company passed over that night. All our able bodied men turned out to help them carry women and children over the river. Some of our men went through the river seventy-five times. During the night six inches of snow fell. It was a terrible night for them. This was on the 20th of October." -Elizabeth
"Their suffering was intense that night, and the next morning there were thirteen dead bodies in camp. An old gentleman went out to get some wood, and the wolves caught him and ate and carried off his body. All that remained was his shoes and the feet were in them." -Barnard
After the crossing food started to get scarce. Soon, the men in the Hunt company were forced to start killing their own oxen, who were dying anyway. What little meat they had was willingly shared with the Martin company, with whom they had caught up with. Even though they themselves were near starving, Barnard remarked on the Martin company:
"They would rather die than live; and so much was this the feeling that a strong guard was kept at the rear to drive them along. They appeared to be like a lot of worn out cattle, lost all modesty and had no feeling for anything except to eat and die, but I cannot find language to express the sufferings of these people, and God forbid that I should ever witness such scenes again. " -Barnard"We reached Devil's Gate. We could go no farther. Three of our oxen and one cow had died, and the rest of the company were in about the same condition. We had nothing to burn, only the sage brush from under the snow, and melt the snow off the sage for water to make our tea. We made our bread with sage water and soda, what little we had. The snow was then from three to ten inches deep. The ground was frozen so hard they could not drive the tent pins, so they had to raise the tent poles and stretch out the flaps and bank them with snow." -Elizabeth
It was at this point that Mary Ann, believing herself to be near death gathered her family. She remarked that her last wish was that her children make it to Zion. She told them she had no doubt the Lord would provide. And her faith was rewarded.
For in early October Brigham Young , who had not known of the late starting handcart companies, heard of their condition and sent the famous rescue companies east to find the desperately struggling saints.
"We were almost out of provisions. Our dear mother said she had never seen her dear family want for bread, but said the Lord would provide. About midnight that night all had retired, and we were awakened with a noise and thought it was the yelling of Indians. We got up expecting they were upon us, but to our great surprise the noise was caused by the teamsters of a relief train and some of the camp shouting for joy. They were loaded with all kinds of provisions --flour, bread, butter, meat of all kinds, but all frozen very hard. Everything was so good. The bread was like cake so sweet and nice. I remember we had to cut everything with a hatchet, but, oh, how thankful we all were that the Lord had answered our prayers and saved us from starvation. Through the timely action of Brigham Young in organizing the company, we were saved." -Elizabeth
Elizabeth was then sent ahead to help with a group of the elderly and young. Mary Ann and the remainder of her family would struggle forward for two more weeks, still near starvation, before being forced to camp near For Bridger for ten days. Then another relief team arrived with more food.
"The next morning we started for Salt Lake City. It took us ten days to go 115 miles passing through heavy snows. At night we would clear away the snow and pile some logs up and set them on fire. They would burn all night and helped to keep us from freezing. Our journey over Big Mountain can never be forgotten. The snow had drifted 20 feet deep, and we had to cut channels as much as ten feet deep. I had no shoes or boots on; my feet were in rags. On the morning of the 13th of December 1856 we passed through Emigration Canyon, and as we emerged there from we beheld with joy Salt Lake City about five miles in the distance." -Barnard
"Mary Ann sank into the snow and cried--whether in disappointment or in joy or both no one will ever know. This was the first time her family had seen her show any emotion except courage and deep faith. After the storm of tears was over, she wiped her eyes and trudged on down the trail, chin up and proud of their achievement. This same staunch courage kept her head high as they went through the streets of Salt Lake City, starving, careworn and weary, while the curious looked on at the last remnant of the pioneers of 1856. " -Barnard White Family Book
The following spring a Cabin was built in Draper for Mary Ann and Barnard (Elizabeth had married). in 1861 she moved with Barnard to Cache Valley to a little town called Paradise. Where her she was faced with her ongoing struggle to quit drinking tea. When she did quit, her health went down fast and Barnard raced to Salt Lake City to buy his mom some tea. When she protested he said "there is wisdom in all things and that if she needed her tea she should drink it"
And she did. And she got better. She spent that last few years of her life living between Barnard and Elizabeth, surrounded by her grandchildren. In 1882 Mary Ann suffered a stroke, completely paralyzing her. She passed on August 22nd, 1882, surrounded by her family. She had stated many times that the only husband she wanted waiting for her was William White, and was thus buried with the surname White, instead of Hill.
"On the twenty second of August, 1882, in Ogden, Utah, my dear Mother died at 7:15 A.M. She was 89 and 8 months old. She fell asleep without a struggle which was predicted upon her head by Patriarch Thomas Richardson. She was beloved by all who knew her. This was a day of great sorrow for me and I might say mingled with joy that she had laid down her body to rest from her labors. I hope that I shall be able to live so that I may be worthy of her society.
She was a most excellent woman, of strong determination and executive ability and genial disposition. She made friends wherever she went. She was a kind and affectionate mother and a strong advocate of the principles of the Gospel. I never knew her to waver. She was always willing to suffer trials and privations for the Gospel's sake and will certainly gain . the reward of the faithful. I thank God that I have been true to her as her son under all circumstances. My conscience is clear, and I know that I shall meet her again on the other side if I am faithful to the end."
I would like to take this opportunity to share my testimony with whoever stumbles across this page. I know my church is true with all my heart. I know that up there is a Heavenly Father who loves me in an unfathomable way. I know that he only sends us trials to make us stronger and to teach us. And I know, without a doubt, that when it comes my time he will be waiting with open arms and that someday I will get to meet my amazingly strong Grandma Mary Ann.
"Let us never forget that we have a marvelous heritage received from great and courageous people who endured unimaginable suffering and demonstrated unbelievable courage for the cause they loved. You and I know what we should do. God help us to do it when it needs to be done." - Gordon B. Hinckley
