Written by Sara Evans Sweeten, Granddaughter
There is a Welsh saying which translated means “Hateful is the man who does not love the land that gave him birth.” I believe there are no people on earth who love the land of their birth more than do the people of Wales. It is a small country on the west coast of Great Britain. It is joined with England by geography and government but the Welsh people have their own language, literature and traditions, and a great national pride. Wales is a land of rough mountains, deep valleys and rushing streams. Its wild picturesque scenery offers a good background for the legends and tales of Welsh folklore. The climate is mild, with a great deal of rainfall.
The Welsh pride themselves in being sturdy, generous and freedom loving. They have a special feeling for beauty in poetry and music. They have contributed much to America and to the world in statesmanship, education, industry and religion. John James, our eminent Welshman of Salt Lake City, visited Wales in 1929 and he writes of his visit as follows: “I became acquainted with J. D. Williams, a professor of history in the College of Wales, and he took me on a hike up a high mountain where we could see the whole of Wales. He said to me, ‘Mr. James, we proudly refer to this little section of the country as the “Crade [Cradle] of Liberty,” and some of us are egotistical enough to think that had there been no Wales, there possibly would have been no United States of America.’
Many of the men who took leading parts in the beginning of our country were of Welsh ancestry. To mention a few–Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, Roger Williams, William Penn and Patrick Henry.
This small country of Wales, the size of our State of New Jersey, is divided into counties and parishes, and the parish of Llanbrothen, County of Merioneth, is located in North Wales. The people worked at farming and in the coal mines and slate quarries. The farms and mines were owned by the wealthy upper class. It was in this parish of Llanbrothen that my grandmother, Gwen Lloyd, was born, November 13, 1822, to John Lloyd and Catherine Griffith Lloyd, tenant farmers on a big estate. Gwen Lloyd personified the spirit of Wales, being sturdy, strong, generous and freedom loving. She had two sisters, Catherine and Margaret, and one brother, Griffith. Catherine lived to maturity, marrying a man named Williams. She had one daughter. Margaret died while very young, and Griffith died before Grandmother left Wales.
At the age of twenty-one Grandmother married Daniel L. Roberts, an industrious frugal man with high ideals and a strong religious nature. He worked in a slate quarry near his home. His parents were David and Catherine Roberts. To this union were born the following children: Catherine, Eliza, William and John.
In the early 1840’s there was considerable religious interest throughout Wales, Brought about through the efforts of certain persons who called themselves Elders of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, commonly called “Mormons,” who were seeking converts to their particular and “peculiar” faith. The noted missionary Dan Jones was in Wales at this time and took an active part in converting the Roberts family. The Elders called on Grandmother and told her of the Gospel and of the Saints gathering in Zion, of the wonderful free country with its opportunities. All that Grandmother knew of life was toiling for others, generation after generation. She could see a chance in America for themselves and their children to have religious freedom and the opportunity to make their living by working their own land. She invited the Elders to come again and talk with her and her husband. She made up her mind that she would join the church and take her children to America. So she was baptized on March 11, 1849, by David Roberts and confirmed by Abel Evans. Her husband Daniel was more fearful about joining the new faith and venturing into the little known world, but when he found that his wife was determined to take the children to America, he decided to go, and so he was baptized on April 21, 1849, by David Eames and also confirmed by him.
On October 9, 1850, Daniel Roberts, his wife Gwen, and their four children, left their home in Llanbrothen for Liverpool, England, where they were to leave for Salt Lake City. On their way to Liverpool to embark on their journey, they were so happy and so thrilled about the new land, never realizing the hardships which lay ahead. They arrived in Liverpool in due time and on October 17, 1850, set sail in one of the old sailing vessels of the time to cross the Atlantic Ocean. Grandmother’s father accompanied them to Liverpool and as he bade her goodbye he said, “Gwen, you see to it that these children do the right thing while under your control, then afterwards they will have enough sense to do it.”
After an uneventful crossing, they landed in New Orleans, Louisiana, on November 23, 1850. After remaining there a short time they embarked on a Mississippi River boat for the journey up the river to St. Louis, Missouri, their destination. During this time there was an epidemic of Asiatic Cholera raging along the river. While on the journey their little son William, who was three years of age, became ill with this dread disease and died. Daniel, the father, contracted the same disease and died within a few hours. Father and son were buried side by side on the banks of the Mississippi river at a place called Worthings Landing in the State of Kentucky.
This was a sad, sorrowful and trying time for Grandmother. She was now left in a strange land, among strangers with two little girls, Catherine, age 8, Eliza, age 6, and her son John, 11 months old. She could speak hardly a word of English, nor could she understand it, which made her position very difficult. Fortunately, there was a man on the boat who spoke Welsh and sided with her in this critical time.
When her father heard of her trouble he sent her money to come home, saying he would care for her and her children the rest of their lives. But she refused to return and would not be turned from her purpose of accompanying the Mormon trains to Utah.
Grandmother continued struggling onward, reaching St. Louis, Missouri, with her little family about the 1st of May, 1851, remaining there about a month. Then she started out for Council Bluffs, Iowa, arriving there about the 10th of June, 1851. She remained at Winter Quarters, battling for an existence for herself and the family for about thirteen months, or July 1852.
From her slender funds she purchased a cow and joined with an emigrant who owned an ox, and the cow and ox were harnessed to a wagon and the caravan started. She had a long tiresome journey of three months, walking all the way, as did her little girls Catherine and Eliza. Occasionally the three year old boy was allowed to ride in the wagon, but frequently had to be carried by his mother. The younger girl was quite frail and sometimes Grandma would slip her into the back of the wagon. One day the captain of the train threatened to horsewhip Grandma for doing it. Later in Salt Lake City he called to renew an old acquaintance but Grandma treated him very coldly.
The caravan arrived in Salt Lake City on September 28, 1852. When they neared the entrance to the valley they were met by some old Welsh friends of Grandmother, bringing her flour, melons and other supplies. She told us that when she reached Salt Lake City one of the men asked her to marry him, and when she refused he made her pay for the food he had given her.
Grandma was very lonely in Salt Lake City and was anxious to go to Brigham City where so many of her Welsh friends were located. So when Lorenzo Snow was called by President Brigham Young to take a group of Saints to colonize Box Elder County, Grandmother volunteered to go. She moved into the little settlement southeast of Brigham City called the “Welsh Field,” which was made up entirely of Welsh people. They had their own church services conducted in their own language. Among her friends was Captain David Reese Evans, who was a fellow passenger on the boat from Liverpool to America, and whose wife and newborn infant had recently died.
On July 8, 1853, Grandmother married Captain Evans and with her three small children moved to his home and farm. Grandmother said many times that Captain Evans was so kind to her little children that she couldn’t help but love him. He was a cousin to William White, a prominent butcher of Salt Lake City, father of J. Parley White.
Captain David Reese Evans was born August 13, 1818, at the parish of Fishingward, Pembrokeshire, South Wales. Robert D. Roberts wrote in his diary, “The summer following, 1857, I went to Brigham City to work for Captain David R. Evans, who had married Aunt Gwen, widow of my Uncle Daniel. I received two steers for my work.”
To David Reese Evans and Gwen Lloyd Roberts Evans were born five sons – David Lloyd, Charles Reese, Lorenzo Lloyd (my father), James and Samuel. The family took part in the activities of the community, the father acting as guard when the Indians became troublesome. One day a young Indian buck came to her home and asked for bread. Grandma had only enough bread for her children so she said “No.” The Indian raised his tomahawk as if to strike her, and when she stood her ground he struck his tomahawk in the bed post and walked out.
Her kitchen was lined with factory and one day she saw a big blow snake coiled up inside the ceiling. She watched it move from place to place, and one day Mr. Snake decided to come down the wall near the shelves where she had her best dishes. She took a butcher knife and pinned the snake to the wall until she could move her dishes to safety.
The Evans family joined the Saints in their move south, going as far as Ponds Town (now Salem) and later returned to their farm. They lived happily and prospered until the fatal day of January 3, 1861, when the husband was stricken and died with a heart attack. So Grandmother was again left without a companion to carry on the struggle of life. About three months after the father died, a baby boy Samuel was born. When he was three years old he and his brother James, five, died the same day of an unknown disease and they were buried in the same grave.
Fortunately, Grandmother was left with a nice little home and a good farm, well stocked. She struggled along successfully there, mindful of her duties and seeking to implant in the hearts of her children the principles of everlasting truth which she had espoused and for which she had sacrificed so much. She continued living on the little farm in Brigham City until April, 1871.
Always looking to the future she felt that with her boys growing up they needed more land and a better chance to succeed. She heard that land could be homesteaded at a reasonable sum in Idaho. Her children by her first marriage were now married. Catherine was married to Amos Wright and living in Bear Lake; Eliza married Caleb Jones and was in Malad, and John married Addie Ensign and lived in Brigham. Grandma was anxious to know what kind of land was offered for homesteading and where would be the best place to make a home. So she sent two of her boys up through Logan way into Cache Valley and Marsh Valley, and she took the other two boys up through what is now Bear River Valley and on to Malad. The two groups met in Malad to compare notes and talk it over.
Malad at that time was a wild gentile town, with many saloons and gambling houses. The gentile element kept the Mormons in one end of the town while they lived in the other. The Mormons had their own school and church and it was as if they lived in a different town. Members of the Church were not allowed to vote and this went on for many years. Grandma was worried about rearing her boys under such conditions, but she felt it was the opportunity she was looking for in spite of the obstacles. So she sold her farm at Brigham City and moved to Malad Valley where she homesteaded 160 acres of land four miles north of the town. They dug a hole in the sidehill to make a place to live, and began to till their land and raise their crops.
Malad was a very busy town with stations of Pony Express and stage lines located there. It was the supply point for the surrounding country. The boundary of Idaho and Utah was fixed in 1872. Up to this time the Mormons living in Southeastern Idaho, including Malad and Preston, thought they were living in Utah. The County seat of Oneida County was established at Soda Springs in 1864 and then moved to Malad in 1866. The state of Idaho was governed by politicians who came into the state for the purpose of getting as much gold and power as possible. The Republican party was in control and they were worried about the voters of Oneida County. The Mormon people who had settled there did not mix or take part in any of the activities of the gentiles and were Democratic in politics. Fearing a threat to their power through the possibility of being voted out of office, the state officials began a very better anti-Mormon propaganda campaign through the newspaper “The Boise Statesman”, the publisher being a Mr. Kelly and the chief contributor a Mr. Goulder. The Governor was Mr. Bunn, the Secretary of the Territory was Mr. Pride and the U.S. Marshal was Fred T. Dubois. These three spent a great deal of money bribing officers, hiring men to interfere with elections, etc. At election time they registered dead men, Indians and any other names they could find. When the Mormons would vote, their ballots would be thrown out. The two parties became Mormon and Anti-Mormons. No Mormon could hold an office or act as juror. They fought the Mormons on the ploygamy question and passed a very harsh bit of legislation. The election test oath was passed in January, 1885, which provided that no person was permitted to vote, serve as juror, hold civil office, who is a bigamist, polygamist or belongs to an order which teaches or advises plural marriage. A few days after this bill passed the Legislature the Secretary of the Territory, U.S. Marshal Dubois, and a lawyer named Smith were in the Governor’s office. The Governor took the copy of the bill out of his desk and said, ‘I don’t think I’ll sign this,’ and the man Smith pulled a gun from his pocket and said, “Sign it!” (Sounds like Sagebrush Playhouse on TV)
Sometime in the later seventies a group of young men of voting age decided something must be done so they could exercise their constitutional rights and help rid the State of these men who were riding roughshod over the people. Someone advised them to take their names off the Church records, vote, then join the Church the next day. The Church authorities said they did no wrong but insisted upon their being baptized again. No person could vote who wouldn’t sign an oath saying he was not a member of the Mormon Church. As these young men took part in civic affairs and their power in politics grew, they were constantly watched to find something on which they could be prosecuted. One group was arrested and my uncle, David L. Evans was hauled into court as the ring-leader, and charged with perjury. With the bitter anti-Mormon attorney, judge and jury, he was tried, and finally acquitted.
Following is an excerpt from the Deseret News of December 2, 1882:
This morning we were favored with a visit from Mr. Henry Peck of Malad City on his way to Boise to attend the Idaho Legislature, which will convene at that place, having been elected to the council from Oneida County. The full Democratic ticket was elected, the other successful candidates being W. L. Webster of Franklin to the Council, and the following to the House of Representatives: D. L. Evans, Malad; M. L. Grewell, Marsh Valley; John B. Thatcher, Gentile Valley; C. J. Bassett, Beaver Canyon, Papers of contest from the unsuccessful Republican candidates have been served upon all of these gentlemen except D. L. Evans. The grounds of contest are alleged irregularities in the conduct of the election and ineligibility. The grounds of the alleged ineligibility is not stated in the notice. The successful candidates, including Mr. Peck, have no doubt that they will obtain their positions in the Legislature, to which they have been fairly and regularly elected.
The United States changed administrations and a Democrat was elected. This took the power away from the men who were persecuting the Mormons and things quieted down. In 1890 Idaho was admitted into the union as a state.
During all this time Grandma and her boys were working their land and getting better established. Grandma was a hardworking, courageous woman, and she taught her boys to work as soon as they were old enough. Uncle Charles said the first work he remembered doing was planting potatoes, with Grandma walking beside him showing him how, while she knitted a pair of stockings. She kept us all in long knitted stockings as long as she lived.
Grandma had but four days of schooling in her life, and learned to read English after she moved to Malad. Her Bible and Book of Mormon were printed in The Welsh language. I have her Book of Mormon. She gave her children the best education the country afforded, even sending them to the University of Deseret.
Her children were successful and took an active part in business, civic and church activities of the communities in which they lived. The two older boys moved with their families further up into Idaho –John Roberts to Sugar City and Charles Evans to Marsh Valley. The mother and two younger boys stayed on the farm and worked together in a partnership which lasted more than forty years, tilling the soil and raising livestock.
Things went well for a few years, then they were besieged by grasshoppers, crickets and like pests. Many of the settlers left their farms to seek work elsewhere. At this time goods were being freighted by a team from Corinne in Utah to Butte, Montana, and many men worked at that. My father, the youngest of Grandma’s boys, took their team and joined the freighting train. Grandma was fearful of that plan, taking their only team, but when my father came back at the end of the season and gave her the $1,000 profit, all was well. A short time earlier the two brothers were married and took complete charge of the farm. Grandma moved into the town of Malad to live. She was still an active member of the partnership and her advice was timely and acceptable.
Tragedy struck again. The wife of her son, David L., died at the birth of a tiny premature baby girl. Uncle Dave was serving as Senator for the State of Idaho at the time. Grandma, although in her middle sixties, reared the baby to maturity, a task that would try the strength of a much younger woman. She lived to see the child grown, happily married and the mother of two children.
About this time (1884) the Church Co-op Store at Malad became bankrupt and the two boys, David L. and Lorenzo L. (my father) bought it from the receivers. They were both teaching school – one in Malad, the other in Samaria 12 miles away. They worked early and late every day to keep the school, the store and their farm going. In 1893 they organized the first bank in Malad (two brothers and three other men).
Grandmother was faithful in her Church work. She was treasurer of the Relief Society for years and years, taking care of the wheat which was stored in a granary on the lot where she lived. She was very fair in her dealings. We were always amused at how meticulous she was in sharing equally among her children. She had several fruit trees on her lot and she divided the fruit among the three children who lived in Malad. The family with two children received the same size bucketful as the family with eight children.
Our family spent the summer months on the ranch, moving back to town in the late fall for school. Grandma drove a little bay mare named “Queenie” on a single buggy in which she traveled to visit her children. When we had a new baby, a birthday, or when there would be hay men, headers and threshers to cook for, when any of the children were sick or if my father was away on business for several days, we could always count on Grandma being there. To me there was no trip nor entertainment so wonderful as staying overnight at Grandma’s. I remember that the very first place I took my baby Orpha to show her off was to Grandma’s.
My memory of Grandma doesn’t take me back to the early days of hardships and privation and heartache, but I remember her best when she was comfortably settled in a nice home with time to visit and enjoy her friends and relatives. Grandma was a very fine looking woman – tall and well built, with her face reflecting great strength of character. Her eyes were dark brown and her naturally curly hair was black with a touch of grey. She never became completely gray. When she dressed in her beautiful black silk dress, made with a rather full skirt and form fitting basque with lovely jet buttons down the front, her beautiful gold earrings, gold watch and chain – to me she looked like a queen.
Grandma always went to Sugar City and Bennington, Idaho, each summer to visit her children, and always took one of her grandchildren along. The first railroad train I ever saw was on one of these trips. I made my first visit to Salt Lake City where we stayed at the old White House Hotel on First South with Grandma and my cousin Emily.
At a stake conference in Malad one of the visiting General Authorities was a man who had known Grandma in Brigham City. When he was called to speak he prefaced his sermon by telling how he went early that morning to see an old friend, Gwen Evans, who was noted for making good butter. Grandma was so embarrassed to have him tell that to all those people.
On one of Grandma’ helping visits to the ranch, all the men were away so the women folks had to feed and water a blooded stallion which was kept in a closed stable. For fear he would get away from us, we carried the water and hay into the stable. My sister opened the door while Grandma went inside. One time the big animal reared high on his hind legs and made a powerful noise. My sister slammed the door and ran, leaving Grandma inside with the horse. No casualties.
Grandma selected names for all the babies. Each was named for ancestors on each side of the family. I was named for my mother’s sister who was working for us. She was such a good girl that the baby should be named for her.
Grandma changed the plan of having the hired girls do the milking. Instead of letting the hired men sit around on the bunkhouse steps waiting for supper, they took care of the cows.
When I was about 8 years old there was a terrible epidemic of diphtheria in Malad. Almost every family had the disease and many died. My sister and I contracted the disease and were very ill. Grandma came to the rescue. She took the younger boys with her and kept them from getting the disease. When I got better she gave me the prettiest doll I ever saw.
We haven’t a great deal of recorded history of my grandfather, Captain Evans. He and Grandma were married less than eight years when he died in Brigham City. He belonged to a sea-going family. His father and brothers were captains of sailing vessels. He sailed a vessel from Liverpool, England to Portland, Maine. His brother William was harbor master in Rio de Janeiro when President Taft visited South America.
My grandfather, David Reese Evans, was a kindly man. He took an active part in the work of the Church. In the early days in Brigham City the Welsh people lived in a community of their own, holding meetings in the school house. I was amused to read in one of the early Church records of Brigham City where Captain Evans was called to a bishop’s trial. He told this story.
When they built the school house, it was the understanding that the Welshmen could use it two or three nights a week to hold services and conduct them in the Welsh language. When he went to get the key this particular night, the bishop wouldn’t give it to him. He went to the custodian, a Welshman, and told him about the bishop in no uncertain terms. The custodian said, “You should have the key, and I’ll give it to you.” My grandfather said, “No, I won’t take it right now. I feel more like fighting than I do like praying.”
In Brigham City he was elected constable and pound keeper, which office he was holding at the time of his death.
Grandmother Evans was very practical all her life. She had her burial lot all fixed up with perpetual care all paid, a nice monument with all the names and dates with the exception of her death. She also had her burial clothes made and stored in the bottom of the dresser in the spare room. My cousin Emily, whom she brought up, would pull the drawer open a little so I could see the clothes, and I would stare with awe, imagining all kinds of things.
Grandma always arose early, having breakfast at 7:00 winter and summer, even after she had retired from the farm. She used to cook griddle cakes made of yeast dough. She would roll them thin, cook slowly and turn them often as she sat with her knitting. When they were done she would split them, spread with her good butter and stack them as you would a jelly cake. Oh, they were good! One such morning, when I was about 10 years old, I was there, having a sleep overnight with Emily. Grandma called us and we pretended to be asleep, and so made her come into the bedroom. She had called us several times, but the next time she called I had a hunch that all was not well, so I jumped out of bed and ran to the kitchen. I found Grandma had fallen on the icy porch and broken her leg. It was a bad break and she was bedfast [bedridden] for a long time. Later she was able to use her crutches and cane and get around the house but being in her late seventies she had to give up her usual activities and have her family and friends come to visit her.
Grandma closed her days in peace at the advanced age of 87, on May 2, 1909, surrounded by those she loved, satisfied with the splendid work she had accomplished, honored and loved by all who knew her. She lived faithfully to the testimony she had been given as to the truths of Mormonism. Her sons chartered a special train to take her and all who wished to go to Brigham City, where she was buried in the City Cemetery by the side of her husband and her two little boys.