Ellen Walters
BORN: 8 Apr 1822 Tiverton, DEVONSHIRE, England to Walter and Susan Chave Walters
MARRIED: 21 Nov. 1845 London England to John Rex Winder
Died: 7 Nov 1892 Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah, USA
Early married years
Contributed By christinecurtis1 · 1 September 2014
(This is a continuation of Hannah's writings in her journal.)
In the winter of 1854, the social times were started, as at previous times, and I was permitted to attend some of them. One night Aunt Anna Ballantyne Taylor, wife of President John Taylor, invited me to accompany her to a party, and during the evening she came to me all smiles and told me there was a smart looking English man just anxious to be introduced to me, so I said all right. It was John Rex Winder, who afterwards became the Counselor to President Joseph F. Smith in the First Presidency of the Church. However, he at that time was only a small man regarding official standing, but he was then looking for a second wife. So she brought him and introduced him. He was very pleasant and social and we had a dance, but I did not think that way. He was father of three children and did not need to see or escort me home. Aunt Anna was my escort for the evening. However, as the holiday came and went, he often called to invite me to go with him to his home and have tea with himself and wife, and then accompany them to the dance. They had brought an Irish lass with them when they emigrated to help them with the twin babies, their boy was three years old. They came in 1853 and had not as yet had time to collect enough comforts around them to make that one fairly comfortable. But the men who were faithful in the Priesthood soon got to see the principle of plural marriage, but it seemed that I could not see it that way yet.
He was in partners with Brother Jennings in the butcher business, and he always went on the range to hunt beef cattle. The shop was close by where he had secured a building spot on Main Street and Emigration Street, so he thought to build a pretty home there to accommodate two wives and he continued to make love to me. I began to think it might be possible for a man to love two wives, if he kept the Spirit of God, but spring was commencing and lots of work to do and I was anxious to earn so as to pay for my emigration, as getting food, clothing, shelter and friends.
This Englishman began to preach marriage to me. I told him emphatically, no. Not at the present. My bible told me this and that he had to be willing to wait, my father must be willing. I had letters from him of recent date stating that he was thinking to emigrate and that he had to be willing to await his arrival.
His wife Ellen said she had never seen anyone until she met me that she was willing for him to have, so of course that had great weight with me.
The spring opened very hopefully for news came that Uncle would soon be released to return home to his loved ones, and the assurance that Father was coming naturally kept up an interest between me and my friends. When the time of arrival of the company of emigrants was definitely known, preparations were made to meet them in the Canyon, by friends and relatives to escort and welcome them into the Valley and City.
Early in September the company arrived, and Brother Winder took me to meet Father, which was a never to be forgotten day and occasion. It was a joyous time, even more pleasant and thrilling than when we two girls arrived and had been met by our kindred two years previous and welcomed to their homes. Brother and Sister Winder had prepared picnic, and he took melons and cantaloupes and good things. His wife had gone on a visit to Salt Creek for a change. She had buried a baby girl not long since, and left the children with the girl.
Father was delighted with the reception and warm welcome, by which they had been received, and he couldn't help being pleased with Brother Winder. So we came down the Canyon together.
There had been another fellow out to meet the company the night before, and talked with Father. So when in conversation he said: "What about Brother Merick?" I said: "He was no account." So while we were all happy and the band played lovely strains, we soon reached Aunt Maria's and found everything in readiness for a cheerful homecoming. My sister Margaret and baby were there and Father was delighted to meet them and hold them in his arms, his first grandchild.
Take it for granted the trip to the canyon was both enjoyable and profitable to Brother Winder, for he lost no time in making application to President Brigham Young for consent to take to himself a second wife. He had waited now about a year since he had sought my company, so before Father left Salt Lake to go with sister to her Grantsville home he had him accompany us to the Council House.
I think it was the second Sunday in September. Brother and Sister Winder and his wife walked together as she had to be there so as to show her willingness for the marriage. Father and I walked together arm in arm. It was 20 September, 1854 and it was a little over a month before I would be twenty years old.
It was with peculiar feelings that I went to my new home that Sabbath evening. I was very quiet; his wife furnished me a small bedroom, bed and bedding. I thought after my three years labor that my Aunt Maria would have furnished my bed and bedding. I had only two faded calico dresses that I soon cut into blocks and made an extra quilt, as winter was coming on and the new house that was being built would soon be ready for cleaning.
In that I had a nice square bedroom he could not afford to have the floors planed, so Hannah (for that was still my name) (his wife was Mrs. Winder) had extra work to do in keeping the house clean. I took as my duty, the cleaning and washing the home. Mrs. Winder generally tended to the cooking. There was the Irish lass to tend the children, so I had nothing to do in that way.
I took delight in pleasing my husband and his wife and by reading and searching I got to feel it was the will of the Lord.
I done all the scrubbing of the new house. There were four bedrooms upstairs, a hall, parlor, kitchen and buttery down. But I liked to work when I could please and it seemed to be so that I could.
I can bear testimony of Celestial marriage, it is all right when we keep the law of God, otherwise it is all wrong. It can be done, for I have lived it and kept the law for a length of time and was willing to continue as I had covenanted to love and obey.
I was up early and late helping on the new house. We lived well as we had fresh joint of meat from the butcher shop, which was close by, every second day then the fragments were used next day. Mrs. Winder was a neat careful housekeeper and I had nothing to do with the managing but I was well pleased to be the girl, as I had been well trained to be a subject.
Our home got in good running order that winter, everything went on in order. There was always good meetings and no excuse for not living like Latter Day Saints ought to. Our family, for order and union was pointed out as a pattern, both wives after a time were dressed the same. There were no fashions, only as we planned them ourselves. I was the dressmaker, I had practiced sewing when I kept house for my brother, when fourteen years old.
Our close neighbors were dressmakers and they would cut and baste the waist for me for nothing, and I could do the rest. The skirts were then made plain. There were no sewing machines that I remember of in the fifties or sixties. I think it was near 1870 before sewing machines came. We were happy sitting quietly at our sewing and then we had the spinning wheel for a change. We braided and sewed the children's hats and knitted our winter hoods. Our fairs in those days were furnished with homemade materials, and we took the first prize on sheeps gray flannels. Brother Winder was an active worker in the fair ever since it commenced. Another ambition he had was to have the first peas, cucumbers and other vegetables of the season.
There was still another crop in which we were becoming very anxious. The main object of our union was to live up to the measure of our creation and obey the law of our first parents, to increase and multiply. We had promised or had been promised through our Patriarchal Blessing by Father Marley, that we would have posterity and now the year had gone and no prospects. He was some disappointed and on 11 January he married Elizabeth Parker his third wife. In 1858 we both gave birth to baby boys. Mine was born July 26, and Elizabeth's the 30th. Mine only lived until the 29th of September and died the day before the birth of Elizabeth's baby.
We were passing through trying times while in our anxious conditions for it was in the time of the Johnson Army trouble. Our husband was called out with a bunch of young men as scouts to guard the canyons and on other duties, and I had just been back from Provo where we went in the time of what was known as The Move, just before my time and got my roof fixed up and was made comfortable.
The city was like an Eden when we came home. No foot tracked around our home. The native currants hung in rich profusion, black and yellow, and that was busy work for me to sit and prepare them for cooking. The clear water was running down on both sides of the streets and green grass was growing on the sidewalks. We had returned in time for the Pioneer Day celebration, July 24, 1858. It was a joyous day. After returning from the move, we were happy to have our husband home with us and he had hoped to resume his partnership business with William's Jennings in the butcher business. It looked like business was going to be pretty lively so Mr. Jennings thought he would dissolve partnership and have it all his own way, which he did.
Brigham Young organized a Tannery Company, and started the enterprise at the mouth of Parley Canyon Creek and appointed our husband to be the Manager of it. He was required to fill a very responsible position in the manipulating the boiler and vats, which required much of his presence and time. He had ten men at work digging a canal to take the water out of the creek and to do other construction work and to arrange another home in which to move his two new families.
It was during that time I had the misfortune of losing my baby, and was left in a very bad state caused from his birth. He was a large baby boy with broad shoulders and large in every way. I had a very hard labor in the delivery, and had been careless in getting upon my feet too soon and as a result took cold and had chills for eight day. At the end of that time the cold settled in my bones of my left hip and in the spine, they called it rheumatic pleurisy. I was pillowed up in a chair for three months as I felt better sitting than by lying down. I had to be lifted to and from bed. Both of my breasts gathered and feeding did not agree with my baby's little stomach. I will not try to write the extent of my suffering. All my left side became helpless and I cannot describe my suffering nor do I like to dwell on the sorrow I had, but at the end of the nine weeks my baby boy died. I should have been glad to have gone down in the grave with my baby. I was 23 years old and knew I had a mighty work to do on the earth and took comfort from the comforting words spoken at the funeral. My Uncle Richard Ballantyne came and took lead and was so kind and sympathetic.
It was getting into October and cold, and I had to be moved to the store room downstairs. The change was more cheerful and I had company and felt better. As soon as I could stand on one leg and wash the dishes and sit down and wipe them I was pleased when I could do that much to help.
It was while I was in my deepest sorrow and suffering that Elizabeth gave birth to her baby, and they brought him downstairs and laid him in my lap and said I am going to give him to Hannah so she may have the next, which came to pass. I took Elizabeth's baby and loved and helped to raise him. That boy is William Charles Winder, he grew and done fine.
I think it was in the month of November we were moved down to the Tannery. Neither of us was very able to attend to the shifting, but as obedience was again required we put the best foot first and picked up our effects and was soon on the road in the lumberwagon on the way to the log house which had hurriedly been prepared for us. The plaster was still wet in the walls but neither of us took cold. We took the spinning wheel with us. We had a lot of men to cook for and they would say their coffee would freeze as we poured it out, but the work was accomplished and in a few months everything was in running order. Industry, patience and perseverance overcomes many obstacles.
We did the best we could to make wholesome meals for the men, with the material and conveniences then at our hands. We missed the butcher shop, which was next door to the city home from which we had been moved. Our husband seemed very pleased to see his Celestial wives so united, we had spinning, coloring and straw braiding. Elizabeth's step-mother had taught her all the branches of home industry, even to the splitting the straw. She had a splitter. She made each of the twins and Mrs. Winder a straw hat, the first summer we were out at the Tannery. I did the coarse braiding and she did the fine. We were very contented, though there was no chance for us to go to meetings, but we read and rested, or went down by the Mill where we had some No. 1 neighbors, Sister Valate Decker, Brigham's daughter, and sister Fannie Little. We would pick flowers on the way home, bring the cows and get ready to milk them. We made butter, raised chickens and ducks to send to the city home, and we enjoyed our country home amazingly as long as our husband had confidence in us.
Time sped on, the summer was advancing. We raised goo melons, cantaloupes, etc., and our boy between us, Willie was all our joy. He was soon a year old. His mother was left in the city one night and couldn't get home and the baby was left with me. His father had been trying to get his mother to wean him so he was rather pleased she had been detained. The next morning when she returned, she found him sitting at the table rolling cakes with Aunt Hannah, and had eaten a good breakfast. He had only cried twice in the night, so that joy was over very soon.
I was now near my time again, just thirteen months from the birth of my first born. I was taken in labor very unexpectedly, and sent a note by one of the workmen requesting him to hastily deliver it. Brother Winder was so busy with business he could not leave and sent the woman who was to wait on me.
The baby came alright, but there was something at my side which required her attention, and she wrapped the baby in something and just laid him to one side a moment, and waited on me. When she next turned her attention to the baby, he was dead. Some phlegm had gathered in my darlings throat and he choked with it. When she got me attended to the baby was dead. Oh, my sorrow and disappointment who can tell, I won't try. He was a lovely baby fully developed, white and pure like was work. When Pa came and asked how everything was and was told, he sat down in the tent and held his head in his hands in deep sorrow before he could come in the house. He came in with blessings and spoke all the kind words he could.
Elizabeth at that critical moment was waiting on eight men at the breakfast table and was obliged to give them attention. By the time she reached my bedside, my darling had strangled.
My dear Uncle Richard Ballantyne and true friend, came again to comfort me in this my great trial, but there was still a greater one to come. However, I soon got able to be up so that I could wait on little Willie. My husband was truly kind and I had Elizabeth's sympathy too, yet I had a hard struggle with myself in order to say: "Father, Thy will be done."
The babies are sleeping side by side in the Salt Lake City Cemetery by the babies of Mrs. Winder, one boy and one girl, till that glorious resurrection. But as all things had to be borne I had to bear up and endure. It is easy when you have a husband who is kind and considerate, and with you sharing the grief. Elizabeth also was so very kind and sympathetic.
The coming winter was a little dreary, but the Lord gave me strength to work. My mind was kept exercised to see that everything went on alright and the men coming into meals, it all was company for us. I soon regained strength and it was good to be around the house again. There was work enough for both of us, we had a hired man to work the team and get firewood, as there was no coal in those days, in the fifties.
The Christmas Holidays were approaching and my father and sister were thirty miles from Salt Lake City, I couldn't look forward to spend the holidays there. Zion almost began to look like a place for trial. To have a husband to whom to be kind, and a nice family had been my theme in life. When I left my native land Edinburgh, Scotland where we had good neighbors and a lot of relatives across the Firth of Forth, this was designated as the Land of Zion to which we were to gather. So in recalling all the scenes, and purpose for being here, I became contented and stayed home during the Holidays and made things as comfortable as I could.
We had a chore boy and a man as teamster. The man hauled the wood and the boy, an orphan, helped around the home and Mill. I had to prepare meals for them and it was a pleasing task for me to prepare the Christmas dinner for them. The boy, Joe, had become lousey. I was determined to examine his head, because we had found some in Willie's head and got him to bath all over. The boy was about thirteen years old. He seemed very thankful to me and expressed it in words. I gave him a fine comb and told him to be sure to comb his head every day. He soon looked like a new boy and felt so much better.
Sister Parker and husband and family lived in Salt Lace City and wanted Elizabeth to go for the Holidays. They were a jolly lot and she went and enjoyed the visit. We were now in the year 1860 and knew a busy summer was coming, so we occupied our time getting a carpet woven for the half of our living room so that half where the bed was located would look like a bedroom. On the other side we made a lounge. We got blocks of wood from the Tannery, and a door that had been discarded and placed the blocks under it then covered it first with straw and spread wool which had been saved from sheep skins, washed and laid it all over and then covered it with my old striped shawl covered it well plenty to make a pillow. We then made a valance and put it around it, and when we got that part of the room carpeted we had a place for Willie to sleep. We got our room looking fine. There was a room above in the gable, two logs high, in which my bed was stationed and I occupied as a bedroom.
Elizabeth occupied the room below, and the stove pipe from her room went up through my room fixed in a metal fire-proof drum, so in the winter when the stove was in the house I had warmth in my room.
In the summer we did most of our work in the shanty at the end of the house, where there was an adobe bake oven. In that we did most of our baking. Sometimes I filled that twice per day when we had a lot of men to feed. Of course we wanted to keep our parlor clean, for Brother Winder very often brought in his gentlemen friends such as Doctor Bernhisel, who at one time boarded with Prophet Joseph Smith.
We learned a great many lessons, and the best one was that plurality of wives was from the Lord and we were both converted to the principle. We counseled together about our work and what one thought the other agreed to. It was said in Salt Lake City that Brother Winder had picked up two of the best girls on the main street, Lizzie Parker and Hannah Thompson. There was no first nor second with us.
On the first of September, 1860 Elizabeth gave birth to a lovely daughter weighing 11 pounds. The Mid-wife was tardy in reaching her bed side. She lived in the city, six miles away. I had to hurry and get a neighbor woman of faith to come, as I dare not act alone. She came in time to save the baby. That was just five weeks before my daughter Anna Jane was born to me.
When she came, Mother and baby were both alright. She made them comfortable and left them to me to nurse. I done all the work, excepting the first washings, and everything went on alright, and saved paying out everything.
When Alice was the baby, five weeks old, Lizzie had a chance to go the City where she was anxious to go, so I wanted her to go telling her I would be alright. It was Saturday morning when she returned with Pa and the woman to wait on me. Pa had laid down and taken a nap and had to arise after a short sleep and hurry to the City. He left a neighbor with me. I trusted in the Lord. They had just arrived in time for my safe delivery of my darling baby girl, who had been an everlasting blessing to both her father and mother.
Elizabeth had the work and two babies, but this time I did not consider I was sick, and was soon able to tend my third darling baby, a girl. At this writing she is working in the Salt Lake Temple for both of our genealogical lines. At this writing I am 76 years old.
There has been a separation by divorce by John. R. Winder and myself. It was caused by mischief makers and misrepresentation. It would seem Satan concluded we as a family had been too united. A circumstance occurred in our home caused by a thoughtless remark made by the orphan boy Joe, of whom mention has before been made. The circumstance was this. It was Christmas time when my darling baby Anna Jane was less than three months old, and on Christmas Eve I had not all my work done and she was restless and needed my attention, but on account of so much work to do, I asked Joe to rock the cradle for me. It was Saturday night and I was left alone with the boy. Elizabeth had gone to visit with her folks and in her absence I occupied her room which was on the first floor, my room having been upstairs a very much more inconvenient and uncomfortable place. He had been sleeping out in the shed, or down at the Mill, and when bedtime came, he looked outdoors and it was very dark. It had been raining and was damp and cold. He said: "I wish I didn't have to go down to the shed to sleep." Then I said to him, "bring your bedding and I'll make it upstairs for you." It was from that act of kindness all the trouble started.
He afterward willfully, or thoughtlessly while talking with the workmen the next morning, he jested or made a remark something like this: "I had a good place to sleep last night, I slept in Hannah's room or bed."
It was from that remark the mischief maker started a gossip and caused the trouble which came between me and my husband. As soon as idle gossip reached Brother Winder, he evidently became enraged and he came to me in a cynical and accusing manner and said; "Where did Joe sleep last night?" I was dumbfounded for a moment before making a reply. From that time he ostracized me from his affection. He never returned to my room from that time.
I fasted and prayed much to have him converse with me, but he never would. I continued to make his clothes, knit his socks, spin yarn, cook for the men, milk cows and do the general work until my dear little baby grew to be four years old. I had been told by my husband, who had stood before God and Angels, that I should be fruitful and multiply and fill the measure of my creation, and that I should have sons and daughters. I then had only one daughter, and I read my Patriarchal Blessing many times, and I'd say: "It is plural." So after Anna's fourth birthday I began to think and concluded to take a walk. I had never gone any place, only when I walked the six miles to meetings. I went to see what President Young would tell me. I prayed all the way, as I wanted children. I was a healthy woman and had committed no sin. I had only done a kindness to a poor orphan boy, and made him a comfortable bed up in my room with the hired mans bedding, in which he had slept that night.
However, it was here where Satan got a key and broke into our sacred affairs by circulating a scandalous story. I became heart broken, worried night and day over the falsehood, fasted days and days, exercising faith and hope as best I could, but to no avail. My husband would not relent and listen to me and know the truth.
I was at home on the farm, located on Third East and Twenty-seventh South Streets, where I had been living at the time I took departure.
(While living at the Tannery, at the mouth of Parley's Canyon, and before Anna was a year old, I had a nervous breakdown which had been caused from having lost the confidence and affection of her father, but as soon as I had sufficiently recovered from my weakened condition, was taken to the farm home there to cook for the men, and to attend to the domestic affairs there.)
As above stated, I had a chance to get up to the City and talk to President Young, and at that time with my little charge by the hand, went to the home of my Aunt Jane Taylor with my heart full of sorrow and sat down and shed tears and cried bitterly. She and Grandmother comforted me with many kind words. Brother Taylor also was kind and considerate of my disappointment and sorrows. I remained at the home of my Aunt one week and from there wrote a kind letter to Brother Winder, and plainly informed him that it had been nearly four years since he had deprived me of husbands attention and affection and that nothing short of him keeping the covenants that he had made with me in the House of the Lord would do, and that I would take steps to have a separation.
My letter was not answered, neither would he come to talk with me. I then went to President Young's office and signed my divorce with his consent and left it there for Brother Winder's signature. He signed it and sent it to me. He also sent a pair of shoes for Anna. (End of journal writing.)
John R. Winder said his reason for depriving his wife, Hannah Thompson, of having more children was that he had been advised by her doctor not to raise more family by her on account of her mental condition. It was for that reason he had lived apart from her. He claims she had shown symptoms of insanity during her nervous breakdown, and by inquiry he had been informed that in one of her ancestral lines there had been cases of insanity; said her own sister, Cecelia, which enroute to Utah had previously had a nervous breakdown and had to be sent to a mental hospital.
His daughter Anna Jane, made a special inquiry of him as to his conclusions about the scandal circulated by the remark of the chore boy, Joe. His reply was that he did not believe her mother had ever been untrue to him, or that in any way had she committed herself to the scandal which had been circulated.
Reuben G. Miller called to see John R. Winder during his last sickness, and he said: "Reuben, I am glad you came. I have been anxious to see you, in regard to Anna's mother, I want to give you $500.00 to take to Anna to be used for the comfort of her mother, and request that she send her $5.00 per month as long as she lives".
In expressing gratitude to him for his thoughtful and charitable act, I stated to him that I knew that Anna would be very grateful to him for this act of kindness to her mother, and related to him the sorrow she and her mother had passed through caused by the separation; that Anna had tried to be loyal to both, knowing there had been differences between them, which had never been adjusted, and that she had sorrowed over it all her life. He replies: "Yes, there had been mistakes, but it was too late now to adjust them here. We will have to attend to that in the hereafter".
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