—A SHORT SKETCH OF A LONG LIFE WELL LIVED—

I, Ann Jarvis, was born, I know, in London, England, in the year 1848, on October 27th, and I guess I’ll never forget that! In the year “fifty-five” I came from London, across the Atlantic Ocean in twenty-one days. It was said to be a record trip—My father wanted to bring us children, four of us, over while he could still get us over here on half fare. He paid for their passage way, but the ship was so crowded that we were not able to get passage at that time and we had to wait, but we were fortunate in waiting for the next ship, for we then had the opportunity of coming on the great ship “George Washington” and I was allowed to still come for half fare.

We landed on Plymouth Rock. It was a wonderful trip—but we did have a bit of trouble, for down in the galley, (the kitchen) some water spilt on a great pan of fat and because the ship’s sail was so close upon the galley, the sail caught fire and the ship caught fire. The cook was paying his passage by doing the cooking and then when he was so badly burned and scalded he then couldn’t cook. The poor fellow. My father then finished his unfinished work, without charge. The captain said, ‘twas a wonderful thing that my father did, to take that cook’s place and finish his work and land his family in America.

We lived in Boston and my father put his life’s money in the banks and this was in the year 1857. We lived near where the big battle of Bunker Hill was fought. We celebrated for it was on the battle ground of Bunker Hill. This was the year of the great panic of “fifty-seven.” Father lost every penny, he never had a penny left. All the banks failed.

I was baptized in the Boston Bay in October, 1857. Elizabeth and Maggie were born in Boston. My dear mother had “child-bed fever” while she was living in Boston. That was when she had my sister Maggie (Margaret). She was pretty bad—they were quit e worried. Took her to the London Hospital in Boston. But she got better and we moved to Ashland because Father had to be closer to his work in the ship business. We were further inland there. Father took contracts for making wagon covers and tents, later on, for the trek West—for he had learned to make these and had helped in repair work for the sails, etc. on board the ships in Boston, and he worked at odd jobs trying to help with various jobs about the sea and as an apprentice.

In Ashland there wasn’t any work for a seaman, for it was too far inland and Father had to get work on ships, for he was a seaman and so I think we came back to Boston. He couldn’t get work on land so it was necessary to come back to Boston to find work. While living in Boston, there was a big fire and it burned everything to the water’s edge. We endured much hardship, for we lost all our money and had very little. The streets were of cobble stones and sidewalks were of boardwalks of planks and if more than one person stepped on them they would mire down in the mud. Boston was quite a big city. We were not able to move on for some time, but we did move about some. The fire in Boston broke out in the night and I guess history will tell of that fire. It burned everything in its way to the water, where the water stopped it. If I weren’t 105 years of age, I think I could think more clearly. I think it is a shame to forget so many things that were once close to me and around me. Some things are quite vivid. Inez, I think you take me back further in my recollections than any one I now know. Not being associated with any of those of such long gone days I have a little hard time in bringing back to mind, but you help me to have those memories and I have loved your people.

Early in the year 1860, we started for the West. My father helped to make equipment for the wagons and tents, etc. He took contracts for making these things for crossing the plains. Due to some misunderstanding the wagon which Father was to have had to haul his belongings in did not arrive, so he had to get others to take his luggage and belongings in their wagons. He also made knapsacks for each of us to carry our personal belongings in. We came in Jesse Murphy’s Company. He was the captain of the company we came in. He brought the first threshing machine to the valley. While crossing streams sometimes, some of us were allowed to ride on it. While going up the bank of the Green River, the tongue of the machine caught in the bank and I was thrown off and luckily landed in a bush on the bank. The trip was varied with many incidents, but non were of a serious nature. I remember the trek across the plains very well, so well that when they took me for a ride in the airplane, when I was 91, nearly 92, when they took twenty of us pioneers who had entered the valley in covered wagons—and we flew at 200 miles an hour, where once we had traveled but two miles and hour over trails that seemed unsurmountable and yet before us these obstacles flattened out like mere molehills. I recognized many of the landmarks in Immigration Canyon and Mt. Dell Canyon which had guided the wagon trains to a safe haven in the Valley of the Great Salt Lake. I was then the oldest Pioneer present on the plane. I wonder what some of those old folks would think now, ha! Ha!

Sometimes we did see some Indians; they were Cherokees. The Indians were pacified with gifts of flour and foods, etc. I contracted Mountain Fever and although weak, I was able to walk to the camp ground when we arrived in the valley. I recollect that the trek seemed as one long summer picnic. We children enjoyed it. My mother walked all the way across the plains and she had a baby boy six weeks after she arrived here. It was nothing for me to walk but I guess it was pretty tough for mother. I had some very good walking boots that my father got, and I don’t seem to remember that I ever got very tired. I was rather a frail child and my father would get me the best shoes to walk in. I was nearsighted in my childhood and my folks never recognized this. And in the early days there was no doctor in Southern Utah. My eyes have always been poor. I worked sewing, making the eyelet’s on gentleman’s cuffs, and the lighting was poor then.

It must have been hard for my mother, to leave her mother in England. She couldn’t tell her she was leaving for the Gospel’s sake. She wanted to bring her mother too, but could not afford to, nor did she feel Grandma could stand the trip and hardships. Father and Mother were baptized in England by Brother Savage, Nephi’s father. Mother was baptized in her street clothes that she had been to church in. This was on Christmas day 1848, in the Thames River. She couldn’t go into the water sooner for Grandpa wouldn’t let her go into the water sooner because she was carrying me. There was a good bit of prejudice against the Mormon people. That’s much different than it is today. I can remember that some of the school kids called me names and I was a pretty good scrapper, ‘cause I bloodied their noses. They used to call us names, Normon’s Mormons, Harman’s Mormons, and I’d take after them.

The old camp ground was located where now stands the city and county building. After arriving here some of our friends took us into their homes. Father was introduced to Pres. Brigham Young who gave him employment at once. At the October Conference in 1861 Father was called by Pres. Young to go to the Dixie Mission and we soon left, arriving in St. George December 5, 1861. We remained on the camp ground and it rained for forty days and forty nights. Israel Ivins, the father of Apostle Anthony Ivins, surveyed and laid out the city, also the water ditches. Early in March, 1862, we moved onto a lot which father had acquired and he turned to Mother and said, “Now, Mother, we’re at home.” Mother looked about her wonderingly, but Father soon had enough ground cleared to pitch the tent “home.” The lot is still owned by descendants and the house he built still stands. It proved in very deed to be prophetic for it was home to them for the rest of their lives. Both lived and died there, Father, George Jarvis, and Mother Ann Prior. He lived to near his 90th year and Mother 84. They died three days apart, a happy ending for both.

The Blackhawk war was on at this time and the Indians were hostile and troublesome. The Indian missionaries were kept very busy trying to pacify them and keep them as nearly peaceful as they could. Sharing our meager provisions with them to keep them peaceful proved a hardship on the colony. Many skirmished arose and many white men were killed. Among those killed was Frank Wooley, our beloved chaplain, Ida McArthur’s father; also Dr. Whitmore, Robert McIntire, and others of our people.

Once when my mother had left me home alone to watch and care for my little three year old sister, Maggie, I stepped out to attend to an outside chore when a young Indian about seventeen years of age went indoors. He saw mother’s silver spoon on the shelf, so he stealthily reached for it and hid it in his rabbit-skin coat. Maggie saw him do this and set up a scream for me to “come quick.” When I got in and saw her motion to me and tell me, I told him to put it back; and he denied having it. He grew angry with Maggie and stooped down and slapped her hard on her little face. I by this time had reached for Father’s branding iron, and as he was still stooping down, I began beating him around the head and shoulders with the iron, and he surely yelled hard, like a coyote. I was angry at him for slapping Maggie too, so I hit him as hard as I could. The Indian ran out of the house, yelping, and told the chief that a squaw had beat up on him, and they found he had a broken shoulder blade and numerous bruises. The chief and interpreter came to investigate his story and after hearing mine, could not believe I had done the beating as I was only fourteen years old. Upon searching him the spoon was found and given back to me by the chief who patted me on the head and praised me fore defending my little sister and said I was a good “papoose.”

In May, 1870, I was married in the Endowment House to Captain David Milne. He was a captain of the militia. We were among the first passengers on the first train from Salt Lake to Ogden. The red letter day was May 10, 1869, when at last we shouted, “The railroad is here.” The Golden Spike was laid that day at Promontory Point. East met West. From our marriage, eight children were born, five boys and three girls. On the 9th of November, 1871, I was present when President Brigham Young broke ground for the temple at St. George. Apostles George A. Smith and Erastus Snow were there also. The occasion was very impressive and solemn. The temple was opened for ordinance work on January 11, 1877. I was among a group of sister whom Pres. Young called upon to do any necessary work which we could do, such as upholstering, making carpet rags for carpeting, etc., etc. Also cleaning. When we had finished one sister asked the President if we were now released and he answered, “No, you sisters are to do Temple work as long as you live.” I am the only surviving member of that original group of sisters.

I also worked with Ann C. Woodbury in the silk industry in St. George. We were successful in our efforts and Sister Woodbury had a silk dress made; the silk is still in existence in her granddaughter’s home in Salt Lake City, (Annie Jarvis Van Orden). As a teacher and worker in the Relief Society, I was called upon to do many services such as laying out the dead, nursing the sick, serving families, etc., etc.

Before my marriage I worked in the home of a very dear and close friend over in Pinto Creek. I did house work for Ann Green Knell, the grandmother of my friend, Inez Robinson Preece. Ann was expecting a baby in the fall of ’69. I was there with her and helped bring her baby on the morning of September 30, 1869, in the little town of Pinto, Utah, in Washington County. The babe was a lovely baby, with big brown eyes and a complexion of velvet petals. She was named Minnie Ann Knell, and she later became the mother of Inez Robinson. She was the wife of Joseph Eldridge Robinson, who was Inez’ father, and he was the son of my chum, Mary Kate Eldridge.

Now I must tell you something of the little town of Pinto. I remember it to be quite a cultural center. It is a tiny village tucked away in a small valley, which is surrounded with many Cedar trees, and hills rolling in the distance. The hills were so spotted that the Indians gave it the name of Pinto, meaning spotted. There was a creek running through the center of town and the travelers would often stop and camp there for the night enroute to California and other points West. The trail was an old trail long before the Pioneers came to settle there. The first settler there was Brother Richard Robinson, who later became Bishop of Pinto, and he was my bishop while I lived there for three years; and he became the husband of my new found chum, Kate, who had come to the Valley ahead of me, and who also was born in London in February of 1848. We were the same age, both loved to sing and were both talented along that line. She was the daughter of Professor Eldridge, who was a great man and a great student of music and a professor of the art in the London Conservatory. We became converted to the Mormon faith in his old country and was at once attracted to the beautiful hymns of the Saints. At his first meeting he was called upon to lead the group singing the hymn, “The Spirit of God Like a Fire is Burning.” He came to America and lived for three years on the Eastern Coast caring for the cultural needs of the Saints there under the direction of President John Taylor. They lived in Nauvoo for a time and then came on to the valley. After settling in Kaysville, they were called to the Indian Mission in Southern Utah and made their home in Pinto.

My chum, Mary Kate, was a lovely-girl—fragile to look at. She had the most transparent skin I ever remember seeing on a human being. Her hair was as black as a ravens, and she gave me one of her braids one day for my hair book. Now I have given it to her granddaughter, Inez Preece. We used to exchange hair for our books in those days. I well remember going swimming in the old swimming hole with her. She and I sang in her father’s choir. He was a great director, a teacher and a philosopher. He loved the out-of-doors, and would take his pupils on nature hikes and explain all the rocks and flowers to us. He could speak on any subject—and was a very devout religious man. His wife was fifteen years his senior. She had had her teeth out when yet a young woman, and looked much older than he because of it. We used to go to singing school very often. We were used in Brother Eldridge’s school choir and the Pinto Choir was the nucleus that later became the finest choir in all of Southern Utah, and was used to sing for the laying of the cornerstone of the St. George Tabernacle.

There we sang “Stars of Morning Shout For Joy.” Inez Preece has the original tin type picture of the first choir of Southern Utah. President Young often praised it and so did President Snow and President Woodruff. They all spoke of it as the finest choir of children’s voices ever to be heard, and we took many prizes and went from town to town singing and putting on our dramatics. Mary Kate had a voice of wonderful compass, and she must have been too good for this earth, for she died very young. She married Richard Robinson in the fall of 1866 and had her first and only baby boy, born on November 25, 1867 at Pinto. I was with her often too at the time. She was never well again after childbirth. She seemed to be having the ague or fever of some sort. She was so languid and told her mother on the day of her death, she felt so languid. She had gone again to the old swimming hole and said the cool of the water felt so good to her. But she evidently was then having what is known today as Typhoid Fever—she came in and laid down and went to sleep. I missed her very, very much. We were so close to each other. Her babe was then taken to raise by his grandparents, Brother and Sister Eldridge (Eliza Eldridge). Kate’s young sister and the only one, was Ellen. They too, had both walked every step of the way across the plains. Ellen sang well too. I have often told Inez that her Grandma Kate had bequeathed a part of her golden voice to Inez. I do enjoy her singing to me, as she calls frequently, and I enjoy her song she composed, “I’m Glad I’ve Touched Shoulders With You.” Yes, indeed, Inez, I wish I could tell you how much you and your people have meant to me. I can well remember your father when he was but fourteen months old, when his father took him away from the little town of Pinto. It seemed then the light surely went out of Pinto. For he was everybody’s baby. We all had a care of him and his mother had often let me care for him and I had dandled him across my knee many a time. I never saw him again until he was a great man in the Church. He became the president of the California Mission, and I once saw and heard him speak from the pulpit in the great Mormon Tabernacle in Salt Lake City. I was afraid to approach him for I felt I would embarrass him, so great a man that I thought he was, if I should tell him I once dandled him across my knee and had held him many times in my arms. My how I did want to go up to that man and tell him how I had loved his mother, but I daren’t, for fear I would embarrass him.

Note: This to me, is the saddest part of her whole story to me of my progenitors and my father. For had she known Jos. E. Robinson, like I know him, she would have been embraced by him and he would have felt rich in her love and would have accepted anything she could have told him of his mother—for he never had a mother’s care and love, and so often longed for someone who could tell him of her, etc., etc. I did not meet Grandma Milne until at the election pools at about the time she was 92 or 93. I felt I had found a gold mine. I treasure her friendship, and though she is no blood relation, she has known of the rock from which I was hewn and she knows I was born of good parents, like Nephi of Old. She relates many stories to me of my parents, their parents and grandparents. She makes me feel as though she had brought them back from the time of Adam. My own folk could not tell me as much. She is not without humor and loves to laugh and joke about those days.

One story she has told me of how Bishop Richard Robinson was at church speaking from the pulpit and his wife, to get even with him, for he was full of pranks and she tells me that Richard was one of the greatest comedians of all time. Had he followed a dramatic career, he would have become renown. This one day, her friend Kate had made the suit her husband wore, and she had taken the seam apart and had sewn in the crotch a little mouse—when he arose to speak he was terribly disturbed and finally had to grab the place and run home for her to help him. He was known as, “Dick,” and was a great singer also. I rather fancy I have a liking for the dramatic side and music too, for I inherited his traits in that respect. My own father had a lyric tenor voice and well loved in his long years of service to the Church, presiding over the California Mission for nineteen years, after his own mission of two years. He died in 1944, and Mother Minnie Knell died this year in April, 1953.

I once asked Grandma Milne about her testimony. I said, “Do you believe the Gospel to be true?” She answered, saying, “Believe it; why I know it to be true.” I took down that day what she said and I shall quote here, this was on her 100th birthday. “Inez, I have had a glimpse into the eternity’s—but I can’t quite express it, if I only could, the wonder, the glory, the Magnitude. Well, the Lord let me have one peek into the Eternal. I had the feeling that goes with it. The spirituality that impressed me I can’t hardly wait ‘til I get to it. I’ve had a foretaste—a dream? No, it was not that, it was a reality. I believe Ann Knell thought I was going to die. I was with Ann in her home. She said she thought I was dead—Ann said, ‘O what shall I tell her mother?’ But I was carried away into this state and this wonderful memory of mine kept this vivid and I have never lost it. So I know that there is an Eternal Home, I’ve had that foretaste. “ This all happened once when I was ill, Hives—bad case—I went off into a deep sleep or coma. Unconscious to things around me but I was myself and I knew everything and what I saw. This was when I was a young girl, living with Ann Knell, your grandmother. I also remember the great flood. I was there. I can remember the haystacks coming down the road. I rescued my shoes. Run for them. Everything was gone but the school house. Brother Eldridge could step off the meeting house platform right into his own house. Inez, you’re a link between me and those I love.

Inez, this is a wonderful world, dedicated to the good and beautiful. It never grows old if people would live up to it and be sanctified; someday when we’re all sanctified enough to enjoy it. My testimony is strong. I love the Gospel. I am glad that I knew President Brigham Young. I am glad that I had the chance to see the great Pageant with you. It was wonderful and you were good to be my eyes and ears that night. I am glad to have seen Brother Brigham come out of that stage. You asked if the man impersonated him well. I can only tell you that he did a fine job, but that only Brigham can be Brigham. We girls used to all like him to swing us around at the dances.

Inez, your mother, Minnie Knell, was a beautiful girl. She was the belle of the ball and her father was Jacob Hamblin’s very close missionary friend. They were good friends of the Indian. His name was Benjamin Knell. They had a fine family. Minnie’s elder sister was a favorite of Brother Anthony Ivins. I believe they were married, but you say not. If not, then he should have her in the next world, for he loved her. She was Lillie Knell. She died, never having married.

War and Love are fierce co-peers
War sheds blood and blood sheds tears;
War has swords and love has darts,
War has broken heads, and love breaks hearts.

War’s a robber—Love’s a thief;
War brings ruin, Love brings relief.
War’s a giant, Love’s a child.
War runs mad, Love runs wild.

War subdues, Love beguiles;
War by force and Love by smiles.
War in chains our bodies bind,
Love’s the tyrant of our minds.

Ann Catherine Jarvis Milne, still living, contributes a chapter to Utah's history of pioneer women that is little short of incomparable.

Born in London, England, Oct. 27, 1848 she was the daughter of the British Sailor George Jarvis and Ann Prior Jarvis, who were L.D.S. converts to the Church. Ann came with her parents to America in 1857. They first settled in Boston, intending to remain only till the health of her mother improved sufficiently for them to move west to Utah. Unfortunately, the loss of their British money through the closing of the Boston Banks in the approaching Civil War setup, kept them in Boston for three years. They arrived in Utah in the fall of 1860, and a year later were among those called to grow cotton in Utah's Dixie cotton mission.

Just aged 13 when this move was made, Ann was soon drawn into community activities and was one of the young women trained and put into active community service by Dr. Israel Ivins during the many contagions of malaria, diphtheria and other ailments which beset the pioneers in this difficult mission. The wide experience and knowledge she gained in this way served her in good hand when left with the responsibility of rearing a large family. She was the third wife of the pioneer Scottish painter, David Milne, an artist if there ever was one, whose hand work lives on in the decorations of the local homes, the Temple, the Tabernacle, the Lyceum and in the lives of his daughters.

Typical of her courageousness implanted through years of pioneering, is the fact, that blindness did not deter her progress. After 12 years of blindness from cataracts and surgery, she took up the study of Braille at the age of 88 and mastered it, only to have the joy at 90 of regaining sight following a serious technical operation. Living now in Salt Lake City, she is as one come from the dead as she sees again the beauty she used to love, and notes the progress made during her many years of darkness. Alert, clever and lovable, she has enjoyed life to its fullest in varied experiences, health and sickness, poverty and comfort, and keeps check on the progress of industry, travel, literature and art. She still keeps on with her study of Braille, just in case she might need it again.

Ann Catherine Jarvis Milne died at the age of 107 years on 8 Oct. 1956.