Willden Family History

Margaret McEwen Willden 1843-1922

Written by her
Granddaughter, Jennie Hancock

Margaret McEwen Willden, my maternal grandmother, was born 21 December 1843 in Nauvoo, Hancock County, Illinois, on her sister, Eliza's third birthday; however, Eliza had died a year earlier in Nauvoo. Margaret's father, Matthew McEwen had come from Glasgow, Scotland about 1836 and her mother, Mary Smith McEwen, had come about a year later. She started across the ocean with their two small children, Matthew and Mary but little Mary became sick and died and was buried at sea. Mary joined her husband in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania where two more children, Martha Jane and Eliza were born to them. In August 1841, Matthew joined the Mormon Church and as Mary joined the Church the same year it is quite likely she was baptized the same day. Before December 1842 they moved to Nauvoo, Illinois where the body of the Saints lived.

Margaret was about six months old when the Prophet Joseph Smith and his brother Hyrum, were martyred. When asked if she had ever seen the Prophet she would say her mother held her so she could see him in his casket.

From her birth to her later years, her life was full of hardships and sorrows. When ruthless mobs drove the twenty thousand Saints living in Nauvoo from their homes, her folks were among the number to flee to the West across the plains of Iowa, leaving all their earthly possessions and their homes to the mobs. Margaret was then a little past two. In August of that year, 1846, somewhere on the plains a baby girl, Hannah Maria, was born to Margaret's mother. This baby died before the 1850 Census was taken. After crossing the Indian country of Iowa, the McEwen's settled at Winter Quarters, near Council Bluffs, Iowa. Two other children, Moroni and Elizabeth, were born while the McEwen's lived there.

Margaret used to talk much about Winter Quarters. While living here, she and her older sister, Martha Jane, attended school. Their parents helped with the basket-making, a project initiated to give the people something to do with their time and something that would help them financially. The Saints were very poor, many of them living in their wagon boxes, and scarcely having enough to eat. Many died with sickness and Starvation. Nearly 600 are buried in the cemetery there.

During the summer of 1851, the McEwen's immigrated to Utah, driving three cows and two oxen hitched to their wagon. As they are not listed with a registered company they must have crossed the plains with a private company. One record says "Fullmore Company". Margaret, now almost eight years old recalled seeing some Indians scalp a man and his son. The latter were traveling alone and had made the Indians angry. The boy got us and ran a few steps before dying.

After arriving in Utah the McEwen's settled in Fillmore, Millard County, Utah, where they took part in the United Order. Two more children, Joseph and James were born to the family there. Moroni, who was born to them in Iowa, died about 1854 at the age of five. The McEwen's must have lived in Fillmore when the State Capitol offices were moved there from Salt Lake City.

Before December, 1859, Margaret's parents moved to Beaver, Utah, where twins, Julia Matilda and Hyrum, were born to them. This made twelve children born to the McEwen's. Margaret told of Hyrum having hemorrhoids so bad as a baby she had to carry him on a pillow at times. Julia did not live long as she was not listed in the 1860 census, taken in January.

When Margaret was 12, her married sister, Martha Jane died a terrible death from rabies after having been bitten by a rabid wolf. Margaret said she could have been the second wife of Martha Jane's husband, James Farrer, but never said why she didn't - - - perhaps she was too young.

Her father was a weaver and dyer of cloth by trade in Scotland but in this new land he farmed mostly. Margaret spent many hours spinning yarn and knitting it into stockings for the family. She was very proud and regretted not having shoes and stockings to wear at times during her teen years. She said her father was not very patient and at times punished her with the ox "gad" (goad.) This was a heavy stick used to prod the oxen along.

While they lived in Beaver, Margaret met John Willden whom she married June 3, 1862. Bishop Philo Farnsworth performing the ceremony. She was now 18 1/2. As John's parents, Charles and Eleanor Turner Willden had established a home and fort at Cove Creek, known as Fort Willden, then, between Beaver and Fillmore, they went there to live, probably living in the dugout John's sister, Ann and her husband had made during the winter of 1860-61. It is also possible they lived in John's brother Ellot's adobe home until he moved there from Cedar City, before the summer of 1864. This locality is now known as Cove Fort.

In the fall of 1868 they went to Salt Lake City where they were sealed in the Endowment House November 14, 1868. Their first two children, John Hyrum, b. 1 February 1863, and Mary Mahala, b. 21 October 1864 were born at Fort Willden . John cut cedar posts which he sold in Beaver and helped his father farm and raise sheep.

Margaret said at the time of the earthquake at Fort Willden, February 6, 1865, the cottonwood saplings swayed to and fro, their tops almost touching the ground. The dishes rattled in the cupboard.

That same year the Willden's moved back to Beaver, mainly because of Indian hostilities endangering their lives and threatening the loss of their sheep which they had to pasture outside of the fort. Also water had become scarce and some of their sheep were dying from the scab.

The next spring was one of anxiety for Margaret as well as for other wives and mothers. The Black Hawk Indian War was on and the Indians had already killed several white men. John enlisted in the Utah Militia, serving at Fort Sanford on the Sevier River from March 21, 1866 until June 22nd of the same year. His brother, Feargus, and Margaret's brother, Matthew also served at the same time. Less than three weeks after John's discharge, Martha Jane was born, 8 July 1866 in Beaver.

Eight more children were born to them in Beaver as follows: Margaret Eleanor, 15 August 1868; Alfred, 14 September 1871; William McEwen, 4 December 1873; Violet, 29 November 1874; Matthew 4 May 1876; Jared Craig (Ellot) 14 September 1878; Elizabeth May, 1 May 1882 and Cecelia, 17 January 1885. Margaret had three miscarriages. In spite of their suffering the hardships of pioneer life, their eleven children grew to maturity, the youngest to leave them was Mary Mahala who lied at the birth of her fifth child when she was 28 years old. Martha Jane lived the longest dying five days after her 87th birthday. My mother, Cecilia, is the only one living and she is now 78; she has lived next longest and is now as old as her mother was when she died. (Note: Cecilia died April 16, 1973 making her 88 years plus almost 3 months at her death.)

Early in the spring of 1887, John and Margaret decided to move to Mancos, Colorado, where their son, John Hyrum, and John's brother Charles Turner Willden, had gone earlier. (For an account of their trip and getting settled in Mancos see the history of Margaret's husband, John Willden).

Down the Weber their little homestead home was on the brink of a hill so their culinary water had to be carried up the hill. In the winter a large barrel in a corner by the fireplace was kept filled with clean snow which was melted by the heat from the fireplace.

Winters were much more severe in those days and there was much more snow. The snowdrifts were so deep some years the children could walk over the fence tops to school. At times it was possible for a team and bobsled to stay on top of the hard crusted snow!

The next summer after John and the boys built the house they added as shelter of oak brush and leafy boughs on the southwest corner of the house so Margaret and the girls could do the washing in the shade. They rubbed the clothes on a washboard in a large wooden tub which had to be filled with fresh water afterwards or it would "go to staves", or fall apart. The clothes were hung on the surrounding bushes. Margaret washed for some of the townspeople.

Families were more closely knit together in those early days of pioneering by the many chores and jobs that had to be done together to insure even and existence and to make living a bit more comfortable. Each fall the bed ticks of unbleached muslin ("factory") had to be emptied, washed, mended, and refilled with fresh straw, corn husks or cattails. Imagine gathering enough cattails for one mattress, let alone more!

While the Willden's lived here, the children got the smallpox, a very much dreaded disease because of the complications of deafness that could result from it. The children had it so severely that when the scabs dropped off they could scoop them up in their hands from the bedding. When the Willdens reported the small pox to the county commissioner, and he returned to town after quarantining them he told some of the twonspeople he had quarantined the "G__ D___ Mormons, now let them starve. He told the afflicted families in Weber to burn all their bedding and clothing. They were all too poor to do this. Margaret fumigated the house with sulfur and washed as much of the bedding as she could. The old hatred against the Mormons was manifest among some of the people.

One day while the children still had a few scabs some Indians from the reservation to the South came and asked for food. When shown the scabs they jumped on their ponies and high-tailed it as fast as their ponies would carry them.

Deer and many other wild animals lived in the surrounding hillls. The deer provided some meat for them especially in the winter. Once when the boys killed a deer they found it had been wonded sometime previously; there was cedar bark in the wound - - the deer's way of stopping the bleeding. On one occasion when Reece Ray came to visit Violet he saw a mountain lion which cased his horses to be spooky the rest of the day.

The Willdens and others took their wheat to Cortez to be ground. On one occasion when the boys were returning alone late in the evening with a bobsled loaded with flour and bran, a pack of howling wolves followed them for some distance. Needless to sya they were glad to reach home safely. They were on a lonely cut-off road that left the main road at the Wetherill ranch.

When Margaret was between 45 and 50 years old she had a very nerve wracking experience along this same road. I quote the story as my mother, Celia, has written it. "My mother had been to Cortez visiting her sister, Lizzie (Elizabeth Walters), and other relatives and she got a chance to ride back to Mancos. When they got to the Wetherill ranch she had the people she rode with let her out there as there was this cut-off road from there to her home about 3 ½ miles away. It was quite a lonely walk, and although there were ranches on both sides of the road there were no houses along the way. There was mostly uncleared timber with one small lake to break the monotony. It was a hot day and she was not very strong. She had a short black cape and a satchel. She became weary and dazed from the heat and being thirsty, and some think she laid her cape down first along the way and then her satchel later."

"As she became thirsty and dazed from the heat she got more afraid until she seemed to partly lose her memory. There was no water for a ways. The next she remembered she was kneeling by a pond drinking out of her hands. She later thought it was the Dave Barney pond which was not the pond by the road. The pond was fenced in all around with fallen trees; she didn't remember how she got through to the water. After quenching her thirst she went through a grove of green cedar trees, past Weber Lake, then through green pines where she came into view of her ranch home about 3/4 of a mile away."

"After she got home she had a nervous breakdown and couldn't even stay in a room alone nor go outside alone. Her ordeal had been a terrible experience for her. The family took her to Dr. Leonard Clark who gave her bromide nerve medicine and told her to never go anywhere without a little bottle of water in her bosom or in her satchel (purse). She soon recovered and lived all of 25 years after this illness." From then on she carried a 3 or 4 ounce bottle of water in her purse.

She heated a heavy, thick earthen (China) plate to put on stomach ache and other pains. There were no hot water bottles at that time.

Many times they hardly had enough to eat. Water for irrigating theri crops was scarce as they were near the end of the ditch and had to use what little reached their farm. After a few years John bought an acre of land in the heart of Weber where he and the boys built a four room house. This home was much closer to Church and town.

The bare board walls of this home were covered with "factory" or unbleached muslin, strips of factory being sewn together to make pieces large enough to take on the ceiling or the walls. When badly soiled, the factory was taken down, washed in cold water and soap and then boiled in clean water, soap and coal oil (kerosene) to remove the greasy soot and smoke. Then it was tacked up again. After Martha Jane married and her husband worked in the mines at Silverton, Colorado, she bought wallpaper for her parents living room. This with a rag woven carpet over loose straw padding was quite an improvement to their home.

After they moved closer to twon and before she had a better way to go to town than the wagon, she would start walking with the hope that someone would come along and give her a ride, and someone usually did. This home was two miles from town. Or maybe she'd see someone coming through "Ghost Hollar" to the south of their home, and she'd be ready and on the road when the vehicle came by.

Her granddaughter, Olga Ray Walters writes: "I stayed with grandma and grandpa the first year I went to school down Weber. On Saturdays Grandma and I would start out for town on foot. She would always say someone would pick us up and they always did. She would buy ten cents worth of cheese and five cents worth of crackers and we would start back home and sit under some trees by the road and eat the crackers and cheese, and Oh! what a treat it was for both of us. Then before we went very far some Brother So-and So from Weber would pick us up and we'd ride home. I was about 7 years old and Decker's goats used to run me down the road every morning and I dreaded to go to school till I got past those goats. Grandma gave me a little bucket of bread and milk or a pickalilli sandwhich for my lunch at school.

Another granddaughter, Edith Anderson Bennett writes: "The one thing I remember about Grandma was when I was a little girl I used to go to Cortez with her quite often to visit her sister, Aunt Lizzie Walters. We drove the horse and buggy. Those seemed to be such happy times except when Aunt Lizzie was so sick just before she died."

Dell Willden Thurston, a granddaughter, remembers Grandma telling fortunes with tea leaves. (This was not uncommon in those days). She also remembers her foreseeing Mahala's death and talking with her when she died. Mahala lived in Beaver, Utah and the only means of communication was be telegram or letter. Of her grandfather John, I never heard anyone's voice like his; and his English expressions "Sez I and sez He". This he repeated quite often. We kids used to get so tickled at him we would get the giggles and then get a scolding from papa."

Theodore Willden, a grandson, remembers visiting Grandma on her death bed. At that time she told him to be a good boy, and great things would come to him in life. This has been an inspiration to him to live a good life. He was one of her favorite grandchildren.

These few responses are all I received when I wrote to all her grandchildren asking them to write me their outstanding memories of her.

Margaret recalled when the crickets were bad in Utah they used a long piece of canvas. Each end of the canvas was held by persons who waved it briskly next to the ground driving the crickets along ahead of it and finally into a ditch where they were drowned or covered with dirt.

She received her Patriarchal Blessing from Patriarch Isaac Morley January 4, 1856, in Fillmore, Utah. Her copy was lost at her death but Celia recalls that it said her posterity would be as numerous as the sands on the seashore, and that she would have a baby in her old age. She never could understand the latter but decided after caring for her daughter Lizzie, who had a stroke, that she was the baby spoken of.

No doubt Lizzie's illness was the greatest sorrow to come to Margaret. She was such a care and they had no money to put her in a hospital so they sent her to the State hospital in Pueblo where she died several years later without Margaret ever getting to see her after she went there. She was buried in Mancos.

On the 24th of July (Mormon Pioneer Day) her home was the gathering place for her descendants and relatives and their friends from the Mancos Valley and Cortez who came for the big celebration the Mormons held every year on that day. One year the night was so dark and stormy
a buggy of Cortez young folks coming for the dance slipped off into a big ditch near her house. They had to borrow clothes to wear to the dance.

She could tell when John came home from the field upset about something by the way the shovel hit the house when he put it down.

At one time she tried selling bed springs. Each spring was separate. On the small end of each spring was a metal projection which fit into a hole in a wooden slat that reached from one side of the bed to the other. The upper and larger part of the springs were fastened to each other with short wires bent into a hook on each end to hook over the springs to hold them upright. The springs would get tangled in the carrying case and when slept on would come loose from the slats so she soon quit trying to sell them.

Whenever she saw a house with low windows she remarked how nice it was as the little children in that house could "see outside".

A neighbor of hers who was giong to have threshers the next day said to Margaret, "Oh, anything is good enough for the threshers". Margaret answered her saying, "Who are the threshers?" then answering her own question she said "Why, they are your boys and my boys and our neighbor boys."

Celia did most of her sewing, including her factory underwear before she started wearing knitwear. She still has a dress she made for her mother. Margaret was an average size woman, small around the waist even in her old age. She never developed that "middle-age spread" so many older women get.

When her children married she told them, "If you make your bed, you lie in it"' meaning for them not to come to her with their troubles. If someone seemed to be day dreaming she'd use the expression, "Off a wool gathering". Other expressions she used were:

"Don't count your chickens before they're hatched, the ducks may turn out to be drakes."
"You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink"

"Some people would skin a louse for his hide and tallow!"

"There's no fool like an old fool."

"Better to have the good will of a dog than the ill will of a man."

"Willful waste makes woeful want."

"Fair to midlin", meaning her health was fair.

This is an old English expression that was used in early days. "It isn't becasue I hate you that I bate (beat) you, its because I like to show my authority.

This is a Scottish expression that was used by the family. "Every day a daw makes Sunday a braw". This is the way it was given to me but I think it should be "Every day a braw makes Sunday a daw". The meanings of the words in a small dictionary are ambiguous.

Here is an excerpt from the Mancos Times, dated 31 May 1912"

"Grandma Willden this week purchased of John Bryant a residence lot on South Spruce St., and upon which she expects to erect at once a small residence."

This lot was in the Southeast part of Mancos Town. Her son Matt, and possibly her son, Alf, built her a four room frame house on this lot. This street is no longer called Spruce Street. Her son Ellot, who was her main support when he was home, was away filling a mission in the Western States Mission for the Church. He was disappointed when he came home to find his mother had moved away from their home in Weber. Margaret lived in this home for the remaining 12 years of her life. John lived here part of the time but most of his older years were spent in the homes of his children.

In April 1915, she received the shocking and sad news that her daughter Violet, and two of her children, Dewey and Hazel, had been drowned in St. Johns, Arizona where they had recently gone for Dewey's health. Ellot, who had a car, took Violet's daughter, Ollie, to St. Johns where they buried Violet and Dewey. Hazel's body was never found. They had camped at the home of a schoolteacher, Jennie Palmer, and Dewey had worked one day on the Lyman Dam a quarter of a mile above the Palmer home and 12 miles from St. Johns as it had been threatening to break from the snows melting so fast in the White Mountains. A crew of men and teams had worked on it all day and thought they had repaired it so it would hold but in the middle of the night it broke. Violet was able to carry her two children, Lilly and Ethel, to safety and had gone back for Hazel and the Palmer children who she was caring for while their parents had gone to a dance, but the water rose too fast and she apprently never reached them. Dewey, who had been sleeping in the wagon, jumped in the water to try and save his mother, but was drowned in the attempt.

Margaret was very interested in genealogy but there wasn't any way to do research like we have now. She used to watch the magazines and newspapers for the name "McEwen". Once she wrote to a Dr. McEwen in Farmington, New Mexico. He was interested in genealogy too, but once he found out she was a Mormon he never wrote her but once. I have that letter. He did a lot of research in the old country and the last I knew his records were with a daughter in San Diego, California. My own interest in ancestral research came from hearing her talk about it.

She spent many hours in her later years crocheting and knitting lace using sewing thread as it was cheaper and stronger. She measured the length of the lace on her fingers, one finger length being four inches. Pillows were narrower then so nine finger lengths, a yard, was enough for one case. I still have the pillowcase lace she crocheted for me and also some lace she knit for a baby's petticoat. Sometimes she knit socks for her boys and quite often she knit mittens for her grandchildren.

I remember she used to feel sorry for Iola and me playing in the hot sun without sunbonnets so she'd make us each one. The next time she'd come to visit us she'd be disappointed to find we'd lost our sunbonnets either in the orchard or the pasture.

When I'd go home to her home unexpectedly at noon as I did several times when I'd go to school without lunch, she'd hurry and stir up a cake by guess and fix a lunch for herself and me. She seemed glad to have me come. Sometimes she'd send me to Ellis Taylor's grocery store for some salt side to fry and make gravy. She'd say, "You tell Ellis Taylor I don't want any boar meat nor sowbelly"> You couldn't stay long in the room with boar meat frying and sowbelly was full of glands and was tough. The store keepers would take advantage of the children and sell them the cull meat.

She had a clear sweet soprano voice and I like to hear her sing, "Just Forty Years Ago". Her favorite hymns were: "Praise to the Man", "Oh, Stop and Tell Me, Redman", "A Poor WayFaring Man of Grief"' "I Have No Home, Where Shall I Go" and "Farewell All Earthly Honors". Most of these songs are not sung now.

I spent many nights with Grandma sleeping weith her in her soft feather bed. Above the high head of her wooden bed hung an enlarged picture of her mother. In the evening instead of lighting a coal oil lamp, many times she burned a "bitch". This was made by adding lard to a baking powder can lid and making a wick by putting a button in a rag and drawing the rag up around the button and tying a cord around the rag then trimming it about an inch above the button., then lighting the trimmed end. The button end was in the lid of lard. When the lard burned almost away through the rag wick she added more lard or tallow.

She was always very proud, wishing her hands didn't bruise so easily, (the least bump made a large black spot), and that she didn't have so many grey hairs. She'd say, "Jennie, pull my grey hairs". I'd say "There are so many I don't know which one to pull". She'd say "Pull 'em all". He hair in younger years was almost black, and her bob was still mostly black her gray hair being shorter than all the rest, but the rest of her hair was salt and pepper gray. She looked all right to me and I never understood why she hated her wrinkles so until recently when I had a small picture of her enlarged.

One evening she met me at the schoolhouse as she had done before as she wanted to go with me to visit us a few days. She had already walked a quarter mile and it was still more than a mile. She never said she was tired or I was walking too fast for her. That night as she lay down to sleep a stroke hit her and she died a week later, 25 April, 1922, age 78 years, four months and four days. She was buried in the Cedar Grove Cemetary by her husband. Eight children survived her, three preceded her.