William Kelsey RICE

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Notes:

                   Last name could be spelled GEAR.

Delivered her first baby (Ellen) while her husband returned to Nauvoo

She was industrious

Raised two Indian Children

Lucy made the first white bread

Teacher


'While her husband returned to Nauvoo for supplies <13 Sep 1846>, their first child was born in a wagon covered with boughs.  Their next camp was Mount Pisgah.'

Lucy received her patriarchal blessing on July 21 by Patriarch John Smith

In 1847, 'Lucy, in her preparations made a delicate dessert to eat while crossing the plains.  She made a lot of gingerbread, dipped it in molasses and packed it in a tight chest.
She brought with her a crayon box filled with potatoes the size of walnuts which they planted almost immediately on their arrival in the valley.  Some of them grew to about the size of an egg and they were all saved for seed the next year.'

Company organized:
John Young (brother of Brigham Young) - immediate command
John Van Gott - marshal
Edward Hunter - Captain of one of the hundreds
other captains of 100s:  Daniel Spencer, Jedediah M. Grant, and Abraham O. Smoot
Joseph Horne, Captain

'As usual the divisions of fifty were divided into tens..... John Taylor [traveled] with Edward Hunter's.'

She arrived in 1847 in Salt Lake City

After 1847, 'Lucy was a good seemstress.  She made dresses, men's clothing, and even coats.  She used the wool from her husband's sheep.  She would clean the wool, card it, spin it into thread, and weave the threads into cloth.  She raised flax which she cured, spun, and wove into cloth.'

After 1847 in Farmington, Utah 'She made soap from every scrap of meat rind or bone she could obtain.  She and her family raised a good garden and willingly shared the vegetables with neighbors.'

'"Aunt Libbie" says she remembers seeing three or more people at a time picking peas, beans, etc. in the garden for which the Rice's would not accept pay.  She also said that half a dozen families carried their drinking water from the Rice's 48 foot well which had to be drawn with a rope and two buckets.' - A History of William Kelsey Rice

'Lucy was very careful in savings.  She had a place where she kept every bit of fat, meat, rhine, and bones.  In the spring she would have fire out of doors and boil every bit of grease out to make soap.  Lye was made for making soap by saving wood ashes in barrels, then mixing with water and draining it off.  Often she would divide this home made soap with her neighbors.'

'To get soda for biscuits, etc. the children would go to the shore of the lake and gather the white powdery stuff where the water had gone back.  This they would wash and let settle.'

'They made one kind of sweet syrup by cooking red or white beets then boiling the juice till it thickened.  Sugar was extremely scarce and hard to get even at $1 a pound.'

After 1848 in Farmington, Utah 'Lucy was one of the first Relief Society teachers and assisted with quilts and other activities of the Relief Society in Farmington

After 1847 in Farmington, 'Besides raising her own twelve children, she raised two Indian children who were saved by her husband when he saw they were about to killed by other revengeful Indians.'

'Once when food was scarce and there was only one loaf of bread for the family, Lucy cut this into thin slices.  When she offered on to the adopted Indian brother, Mochiem, he said, "No Mother, give to the other children, Indian can eat parched corn."'

'Mochiem lived with the family for over 40 years but never married.  He was raised among white girls who wouldn't marry him and he never would try to marry an Indian girl.'

'In after years, Lucy told her children and grandchildren that she made the first white bread that was made from wheat grown in Utah.  She gleaned the heads that ripened first around ant hills, threshed them out, ground them through a coffee mill, sifted and finally, bolted the flour through a piece of her white lawn wedding dress that she had brought with her.  The she made biscuits about the size of walnuts and had enough for each of one of those assembled to taste.  The occasion?  The first anniversay of the arrival of the Saints in Utah, July 24, 1848.'

'In the Spring of 1849, they moved to Farmington, Utah.  They had a two-room home in which she taught school.

"She brought a crayon box filled with potatoes the size of walnuts which were immediately planted after they arrived in the Valley.  They were all saved and used as seed the following year."





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http://www.familyheritageseries.org/site/articles/11/1/Lucy-Witter-Geer-1824-1899/Page1.html
Lucy Witter Geer (1824-1899)
By FHS Editor  
Published 04/1/2007 
Rice Family 
FHS Editor

Life Sketch 
Lucy Witter Geer was born on February 23, 1824, at Perry, Ashtabula County, Ohio, and the daughter of Moses Geer and Sarah, his third wife. Lucy was eight years of age when she and her father and older sister, Sarah, were baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Lucy and her sister became expert seamstresses and helped the family financially in this way. This skill proved invaluable to Lucy in her later life. Her parents died and were buried at McHenry, Illinois. Lucy was the only one of her family that traveled to Utah.
After Lucys marriage to William Kelsey Rice, October 9, 1845, the newlyweds became involved in plans to leave Nauvoo to their enemies and join in an exodus to new places. They were among the sorrowing Saints at the time Joseph and Hyrum Smith were killed. They were among those first to leave Nauvoo in the winter of 1846. They drove a team that consisted of a steer and a milch cow. The cow gave them milk along the way. It took a certain kind of courage for this young couple to leave a warm home to face the winter blasts of parts unknown. It was a case of Ill go where you want me to go, Dear Lord. Their first camp was called Sugar Creek. Winds howled and snow flew. Sickness and death visited many of the homeless outcasts, but a faith stronger than the elements carried them on. Their next camp was Mount Pisgah.
While Lucys husband was away (returning to Nauvoo for additional supplies) Lucy gave birth to her first child. She was living in a wagon box backed against a hillside and banked with dirt. A Brother and Sister Martin H. Peck had made her bed comfortable with pine needles and cared for her and the baby, Ellen, faithfully. This was the first of twelve children born to Lucy.
They finally arrived in the Salt Lake Valley in 1847. They subsisted during the first winter in the Old Fort on the meager provisions they had brought with them and what they could procure from neighbors in exchange for milk. In the following spring, they planted a crop of wheat. Although crickets almost devastated the field, they harvested about seven bushels to the acre and ground meal for flour in a coffee mill. Lucy gleaned early-ripened wheat heads from anthill areas and when her husband harvested, she gleaned all that was missed.
When William Kelsey was in Parowan, Utah to settle Indian trouble, he gave a black whip and a lariat for a small Indian boy and girl about to be killed by revengeful and quarrelsome Indians. These children grew up in the Rice home with Lucys twelve children.
Lucy raised flax, which she cured, spun and wove into cloth. She sheared sheep for wool and made many articles of clothing for men, women and children. She took an active part in early Church activities and, like all the rest of the pioneers, was too busy to ever feel sorry for herself.
She died in Lewiston, Cache County, Utah, March 28, 1899, at the age of 75.