THE RELIEF SOCIETY OF THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER DAY SAINTS ~~~ (From our archives)

 

RELIEF SOCIETY OPENING SOCIAL ~~~ 1977

 

Relief Society Poetry ~~~ 1962

 

Century Utah Women Spun Yarn and Also Dug Ditches

 

19th-Century Utah Women Spun Yarn and Also Dug Ditches

W. Paul Reeve
History Blazer, January 1995

In 1870, 13.3 percent of American women over age ten were working outside of the home. By the end of the nineteenth century, largely due to expanding businesses, this figure climbed to nearly 20 percent of American women. Over the same period Utah’s female work force grew from 4 percent to 13.5 percent but remained well below the national average. Regardless, these numbers do not come close to suggesting the significant and integral role Utah women played in taming the harsh western frontier and in building the Beehive State.

Utah’s pioneer women not only oversaw domestic chores but also shared in farm and field work. Missions and church assignments frequently took Mormon husbands and fathers away from home, leaving women to manage the household and farm. In Deseret, Millard County, Christina Oleson Warnick described her dizzying list of tasks that included digging irrigation ditches, plowing, planting and fertilizing the land, shearing the sheep, cutting hay for the cows, and spinning yarn and weaving cloth. Other women’s workloads were similar; some supplemented the family income with sewing, laundering, or other home-based employment. Understandably, in Utah’s urban areas the percentage of women working outside the home was higher than for the territory as a whole. Jobs held by Salt Lake City female workers in 1870 included shoe shop keeper, nurse, and hotel steward, but the large majority worked as domestic servants.

Utah women also engaged in a variety of other activities and organizations, including lecture societies, woman suffrage, the temperance movement, and a plethora of women’s auxiliaries and clubs. In 1875 the Catholic Sisters of the Holy Cross opened St. Mary’s Academy of Utah and that same year began a small hospital for sick and injured miners. Similarly, Mormon women opened the Deseret Hospital in 1882; it was almost entirely managed and staffed by female directors and doctors. In addition, LDS Relief Society women energetically became involved in a number of enterprises designed to help care for the state’s poor. They not only donated money, food, and materials but managed business operations such as silk raising and grain storage.

As the nineteenth century wore on, employment opportunities for women expanded. In 1872 two Utah women, Phoebe W. Couzins and Georgie Snow, were admitted to the Utah Bar; others traveled east and earned medical degrees. One Provo woman worked as a miner in 1900, and many women became telegraph operators, school teachers, nurses, and milliners. Still, by the turn of the century most Utah women remained primarily occupied as homemakers. Regardless of their title, however, it seems clear that Utah women were active in charity groups and other avocations that provided opportunities to develop their skills and participate in civic campaigns for change. In general Utah’s women embodied a spirited force that shaped nineteenth-century Utah.

For additional information see Michael Vinson, “From Housework to Office Clerk: Utah’s Working Women, 1870–1900,” Utah Historical Quarterly 53 (fall 1985): 326–35.

JOURNEY OF FAITH ~ ERICK AND CAROLINE GUNDERSON ~ David R. Gunderson

With permission of David R. Gunderson, we include the following book to our blog.   I will do a few increments at a time, as I have done with the Andrew Madsen and James Monsen histories.  I will also paste the pages over to David's own blog page: http://davidrgunderson.blogspot.com/

This book will be of interest to not only the Gunderson Family but also to the Brotherson, Ericksen, Peel,   Madsen, Larsen and more.

JOURNEY OF FAITH

Erick and Caroline Gunderson

The following are events that took place in Mt. Pleasant after the Gundersons arrived in Mt. Pleasant.  Also included are sketches of Salt Lake City as it looked in 1865

more to come .........

Mt. Pleasant Pioneer Relief Society ~ Donations of Wheat 1876

Beloved Sisters and Friends !

 We make this appeal to you in all sincerity, after most serious thought on storing away grain while it is within our reach.  We wish is where possible the subject might be agitated in private until every Mother and Daughter should feel the necessity of immediate action.

Donations by the bushel:

Mount Pleasant November 1876 Relief Society

Beloved Sisters and Friends !
 We make this appeal to you in all sincerity, after most serious thought on storing away grain while it is within our reach.  We wish is where possible the subject might be agitated in private until every Mother and Daughter should feel the necessity of immediate action.

It is the express wish of Pres. Young  that all sisters in all settlements set out to work with a will , and in energy become true Latter Day Saints and gather up grain and store it away against the day of want.

We the Sisters of Mt. Pleasant have met in council and have thought it best to ascertain what the Sisters can aid us in this laudable undertaking.

We have also thought that at the very least each sister or mother might help us to 1 bushel of wheat.

We also wish to be distinctly understood that every sister consult her husband and do nothing without his sanction or approval.

We also wish it to be known that all wheat donated to us at this time be stored away in a save place and kept sacred against the day of want.

The teachers going round will take the names of those who are willing to donate, and the amount donated with their names shall be entered in with the records of the Society.  Let it be understood that when we receive the names of the donors we will send round teams in the different wards to collect.

May the Lord bless those who are desirous to assist us in our efforts to do good, and may we be wise as Joseph in Egypt and as successful.

God grant that not one honest heart may falter.

Margaret F.C. Morrison, Pres.
Caroline Madsen, Councilor
Christianna Peel, Councilor
Louise Hasler, Secretary

Donors:

1st Ward
Christiana  Sina Jensen                                1 Bushel
Elizabeth McCarter                                     1
T. Winters                                                  1
Katherine Hafen                                          1
Lizetta Hafen                                             1
Sine Fowls                                                 1
Line and Stine Johansen                              3
Sarah Oldham                                            2
Emy Olsen                                                 1/2
Line Keller                                                 1/2
Mary Winkler                                             1
Tia Bramstead                                            1
Susannah Thalman                                      2
Lise Joplin                                                  1
Susannah Joplin                                          1
Mis Rolvsen                                               1
Teyentha Jensen                                         1
Kathrine Nelson                                          1
Lisse Fowls                                                1
Mary Jessen                                               1/2
Caroline Jessen                                           1/2
Emily Courts                                              1/2
T Caroline Larsen                                       2
Sophia Christensen                                     1
Sophia Jensen                                            1
Ellen Olsen                                                1 1/2
Mary Brooks                                             1
Nancy Racteen                                          1
Kathrine Nelson                                         1
Louise Hasler                                            1
Sine Peterson                                            1
Ellen Johansen                                          1/4
Mary Peterson                                          1/2
Stine Christensen                                      1
Johanna M. Peterson                                 1
Sine Anderson                                           1
Mary Peterson                                           1

Arla May Stansfield Memories of Early Mt. Pleasant

Mt. Pleasant Relief Society Sisters Letter to Mary Ann Young ~ August 1877

Mrs. Mary Ann  Young
    And  others of the family,
Beloved Sisters
     The painfull intelligence has reached us this afternoon of the decease of your beloved husband and father, and our much respected Pres. Brother Brigham.

He has run his race and finished his course and gained for himself an inheritance among the Gods.

Dear Sisters and children, we the sisters of  Mt. Pleasant do most deeply sympathise with you all under this your most trying bereavement.  And pray God our Heavenly Father that you may receive strength equal to the affliction you have been called upon to pass through.

Brother Brigham has closed his career with honor and dignity.  And like a shock of corn fully ripe has laid down to await a glorious resurrection. May we who are here behind try to adhere to counsels and teaching, strive to emulate his example.  And may our whole future be spent in meekness and humility that when our turn comes to pass behind the veil it may be said to us as to him, "Well done good and faithful servants, enter then into the joy of thy Lord".

Your Sisters in the Gospel
 MVC Morrison, Pres
Helena Madsen, couns.
Christiana Peel, couns.
Louisa K Hasler, Secty

Beverly Anderson Olsen Passes Away

Beverly is the lady to thank for the Relief Society Minutes that we post here. 

She regularly attended Pioneer Day.  She was a long-time member of the Mt. Pleasant First Ward.

We honor her memory and her goodness.

Read her obituary here:

Church Benefit Nets $2000.00 1952

Relief Society

Greetings to Relief Society - - - from Bathsheba W. Smith 1902

Wilhemina Morrison Ericksen

Wilhemina was born in Ephraim. Came to Mt. Pleasant with her parents, William and Margaret F.C. Morrison in 1859. She spent her early childhood living in the Mt. Pleasant Fort. When she was a teenager, she learned telegraphy and was a telegraph operator, working in the home of Bishop William S. Seely. She later married Henry Ericksen, who built Ericksen Meat and Grocery along with his brother, Alif. Wilhemina grew up following the example of her mother, Margaret F.C. Morrison, serving as a Relief Society President and then became the first Stake Relief Society President. One of her duties was to dress and prepare the bodies of the people of that time for burial. We will sometime in the future include her entire biography.
Taken from Alice Hafen's Photos From the Past

Esther Rasmussen Christensen

In Memory of a dear friend to all of Mt. Pleasant. She was a member of the Mt. Pleasant Pioneer Historical Association for a number of years as well as other historical societies. Her father, Dan Rasmussen, was one of the original board members. She taught school, sunday school and Relief Society. She served in the Manti temple. She was an avid historian and loved working to preserve the history of Mt. Pleasant. She was loved and honored by everyone who knew her.