Stories of Pioneers of Malad Valley 

Because  of the popularity of the biographies published last year, at the request of some of our readers, The Enterprise will publish from time to time additional biographies of pioneers. 

Gwen Lloyd Roberts Evans 

(By Mrs. Emily Evans Foss) 

Grandmother Gwen Lloyd Roberts Evans was born in the Vale of Lanbrothin, Hyrionethshire, North Wales, Nov. 13, 1822. She was the daughter of John and Catherine Griffith Lloyd, farmers on a rented farm. She had two sisters, Cathrine and Margaret. Cathrine married a man named Williams. Her daughter wrote grandmother’s letters to her father for her after she came to America. Margaret died while young. Her only brother was Griffith Lloyd. He died before she left Wales. 

At the age of 21 grandmother married Daniel Roberts. He worked at his trade in a stone quarry, near his home. Every Saturday night he gave all his wages to his wife except a shilling or two which he kept to have a time with the boys. This was customary with his fellowmen. 

To this union was born the following children, Catherine, Eliza, William, and John. Sometime in the late forties the L.D.S. missionaries visited their locality. Grandmother joined the church but grandfather was not so easily converted. When he found out that grandmother was coming to Zion whether he did or not he too joined and they left Wales in 1850. They embarked on a small vessel which took six weeks to cross the ocean. They landed in New Orleans, from which port they took passage on a river steamer bound for Council Bluffs, Iowa. Where the Mormon people were assembling preparatory for their long trek westward. 

Grandmother said that all she could see for her family in Wales was to toil for others as she had done. She could see a chance in America for her children to progress. Her father went with her to Liverpool where she took the small sailing vessel for America, as he bade her goodbye he said, “Gwen you see to it that these children will do the right thing while under your control, then afterwards they will have sense enough to do it.” 

While they were on the Mississippi river, cholera broke out on the steamer. Grandfather and William, who was three years old, fell victims to the disease. Grandmother said that the ship’s lights were put out during the night. She touched her husband, he was dead; then she touched her little boy and found him dead also. There was no one on board the ship except one old man that could speak her language. The next morning the ship was pulled near the shores of Kentucky and the two rough boxes containing the dead bodies were carried along a plank and buried in a woody section, and a man carved their names on a tree. 

Her father wrote for her to return to Wales, even sent her money, but she refused their assistance, and refused to return from her purpose of accompanying the Mormons to Utah. 

Her first winter was spent in St. Louis, the second in Council Bluffs. In 1852 from her slender funds she bought a cow, and joined forces with an emigrant who owned an ox. These were hitched to a wagon and the caravan started west. 

Grandmother walked the entire distance across the plains as did her two little girls, Catherine, age eight, and Eliza, six years old. Eliza was a frail little girl and sometimes grandmother slipped her in the back of the wagon. One time the Captain threatened to horsewhip her. She never forgot this, and after she had located in Malad this Captain called to renew old times, but grandmother treated him very indifferently. John was three years old when they crossed the plains, and was permitted to ride occasionally but frequently had to be carried by his mother. 

When she reached the entrance to Salt Lake Valley, Kid Wallender Owens and David Eames were there to meet her with melons and flour. 

David Eames afterwards asked her to marry him; when she refused he made her pay for the flour. The captain who wanted to horsewhip her was surprised when he found that she had friends in Utah and treated her very nice, or tried to but grandmother ignored him. 

In 1863 she married David R. Evans, better known as Captain Evans, who had come to Utah in 1847. Captain Evans had been a sea captain and made frequent voyages from Liverpool to Portland, Maine. They were fellow passengers on the voyage to New Orleans in 1850. Grandfather received the name of captain in the following way. As the ship was crossing the oceans, the captain and his crew got drunk, grandfather was sober and steered the ship across the ocean to safety. 

After her marriage the second time she moved to brigham City, Utah, where five boys were born to them. They were David Lloyd, Charles Reese, Lorenzo Lloyd, James and Samuel. Grandfather Evans was a very kind man. When we asked grandmother whom she loved the best, Roberts or Evans, she would say, Daniel was my first and real love, but David R. Evans was so kind to Daniels, children, I could not help but love him. January 1, 1861, grandfather came home from a Priesthood meeting, grandmother was in bed. In the night he kissed her. She said the kiss was queer, so she got up and lit the candle, and found him dead. She said she couldn’t believe it, so she had the only Dr. in Brigham examine him to make sure. Three months later her little Samuel was born. When he was three years old he and James died and were buried in the same coffin. 

April 28th, 1871, grandmother left Brigham to locate somewhere in Idaho. She had heard that land could be homesteaded at a reasonable sum. Her oldest daughter, Cathrine, married Amos Wright and was living in Bear Lake, Ida [Idaho]. Eliza married Caleb R. Jones, and lived in Malad. John married Mary Ensign and lived in Brigham. So on April 28th 1871, grandmother, with David and Lorenzo, started for Malad. The first night they camped across Bear River, the second night was spent at Vanderwoods Spring, the last night was at the Dutchman’s place twenty miles south of Malad. May 1st they arrived at Aunt Eliza’s where they stayed until they were located. 

John and Charles went up through Cache valley. John was 21 years old at this time and Charles was 15, they drove as far as Preston now is, and stoked out a place, then went back to Richmond to get some logs but got home sick and started to Malad. At March Valley they took up some land. Then went on to Malad to see mother. They met Uncle Caleb, and he persuaded them to take up 160 acres north of Malad. Grandmother felt pretty badly at that time. 

Malad was considered a tough town, full of gentiles and such. She had been worried and warned that it was a very bad place to raise her boys, but she took a chance and homesteaded a farm of 160 acres. 

Grandmother was a very courageous woman, and a leader. She taught her boys how to plant potatoes, and while walking along the furrows she’d be knitting their stockings. One time after she had lined her kitchen walls and ceilings with factory, a big blow snake crept up in the ceiling. Every night she could see it coiled in different places, one day Mr. Snake decided to come down the back of a shelf on which her best dishes were placed. It got half way back on the shelf, grandmother took a butcher knife and pinned it to the wall until she took her dishes down. Another time a big Buck Indian demanded her last loaf of bread, but she refused. At her refusal he threw his tomahawk into the bedpost, when he found that she was not frightened he walked out. 

Grandmother seemed very capable of handling her affairs. …had only attended school four days in her life, after she  moved to Malad she learned to read. 

She died May 2nd 1909. She would have reached her 87th birthday had she lived until November. She was buried at Brigham City. by the side of her husband. She left 446 descendents.