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| Related Stories | Condensed from the book "A Journey Back in Time" by Mary Olson Almond | |
Children
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After the death of her mother, Thirsa on the plains, little Margaret, my grandmother, cared for the baby, Louisa, for about a year. A nipple could not be procured, so little ingenious Margaret fed the baby milk through a goose quill wrapped with a piece of cloth. They became very attached to each other. When they arrived in the Placerville area in California, Mr Brown went to the gold fields, taking his older son, Dan, with him. He left his older daughter, Linda, with the Anciel Twitchell family, who were members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He left Margaret and Louisa with the Ephraim Twitchell family, who were also members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. When Mr. Brown failed to return, the Twitchells gave little Louisa away to some folks by the name of Shepherd. We do not know the circumstances, but it was sad when these two were parted, for Margaret never saw her little sister again. WHAT HAPPENED TO MARGARET ? One can easily imagine the sorrow and loneliness of poor little golden-haired, blue-eyed Margaret, whose mother was dead; whose father was lost to her; whose step-father, who went after gold, was lost and perhaps dead; and whose beloved little sister was snatched away forever. Feeling lonely and unloved in a strange place, she remembered her grandmother and grandfather Muller back in Missouri. She wondered if she would ever see them again, but she never did. She could remember going with her mother to see her grandparents, but being so young, she could not remember where they lived; only that to get there they had to go over a big river by way of a high bridge. (This was in St. Joseph, Missouri.) She would lie awake at night, and think how good it would be to see some kind of relative. How wonderful it would be if she could accidentally meet her own father. Then she said she would go into a real daydream as she lay there. She imagined she would know her father immediately upon seeing him; she remembered he was Irish, and that he had red hair. She said she wouldn't care even if he was in rags if she could only find him. She never ever saw one of her blood relatives again. Most of the Twitchells who came across the plains together--which was a very large group--moved from the Sacramento area to San Juan Bautista, San Benito County, California in about 1851, and Margaret was with them. At that time it was Monterey County. After the Ephraim Twitchell family left San Juan Bautista in 1854, they lived in San Bernadino for three years. It was here in San Bernadino, when Margaret was seventeen years old, that she married one of the Twitchell boys, James Ephraim, age twenty-two, on August 13, 1857. They built a three-room brick house in San Bernadino. Very soon after that, the colony of San Bernadino was called back to Utah by Brigham Young. Johnston's Army had come to Utah and most all other colonists were called back also. As I have said before, the Twitchells helped colonize Beaver, Utah, although the town had been started a year before. The San Bernadino saints left California in November 1857 and arrived in Beaver on March 1, 1858. Great-grandmother, Melissa died March 2, 1858, and her grave was the first grave in Beaver Cemetery. James Ephraim and Margaret's first child, Celestia, was said to have been the first white female child born in Beaver, on March 20, 1858, and their house was the third house to be built there. |