The Idaho Enterprise – April 17, 1997 – Page 4
(Photo of a young girl standing with a woman. Caption says: Pictured with Winfred (Gwen) Lloyd Roberts Evans is daughter Eliza, who later married Caleb Jones.)
Written by Sara Evans Sweeten, Granddaughter.
(Due to the length of this history, it has been edited for use in The Idaho Enterprise.)
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 the people of Wales.This small country of Wales the size 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, Winifred (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.
At the age of twenty-one Gwen married Daniel L. Roberts, an industrious, frugal man with high ideals and a strong religious nature who worked in a slate quarry near his home. His parents were David and Catherine Roberts. To this union were born four children: Catherine, Eliza, William and John.
In the early 1840’s there was considerable religious interest throughout Wales, brought about through the efforts of some who called themselves Elders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Commonly called “Mormons,” they were seeking converts to their particular and “peculiar” faith.
The Elders called on Grandmother and told her of the Gospel and of the Saints gathering in Zion, and 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 made up her mind that she would join the Church and take her children to America. She was baptized on March 11, 1849. Her husband Daniel was more fearful about joining the new faith and venturing into the little known world. When he found that his wife was determined to take the children to America, he decided to go and was baptized on April 21, 1849.
On October 9, 1850, Daniel, his wife Gwen, and their four children, left their home in Llanbrothen for Liverpool, England, where they were to leave for Salt Lake City.
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 good-bye he said, “Gwen, you see to it that these children do the right thing while under your control. Then afterwards they will have sense enough to do it.”
After an uneventful crossing, they landed in New Orleans, Louisiana, 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. Their little son, William, 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 eight, Eliza age six, and her son John, 11 months old. She could hardly speak 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 aided her in this critical time.
Grandmother continued struggling onward, reaching St. Louis, Missouri, with her little family about May 1, 1851, remaining there a month. She started for Council Bluffs, Iowa, arriving about June 10, 1851. She remained at Winter Quarters, battling for an existence for herself and family until about July 1852.
From her slender funds she purchased a cow and joined with an emigrant who owned an ox. The two 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. 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 her for doing it.
The caravan arrived in Salt Lake City on September 29, 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 to the little settlement southeast of Brigham City called the “Welch Field,” which was made up entirely of Welsh people. They had their own church services conducted in their own language.
Among her friends was a 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. 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.
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 kindly man.
Captain David Reese Evans was born August 13, 1818, at the Parish of Fishingward, Pembrokeshire, South Wales. Five sons were born to them: David Lloyd, Charles Reese, Lorenzo Lloyd (my father), James and Samuel. The family took part in the activities of the Church and community, the father acting as guard when the Indians became troublesome. In Brigham City he was elected constable and pound keeper, which office he was holding at the time of his death.
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 go 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 David was stricken and died with a heart attack, again leaving her 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 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. Grandma was anxious to know what kind of land was offered for homesteading and where would be the best place to make a home. 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.
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. Mormons 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. 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 fill 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 bitter anti-Mormon propaganda campaign through the newspaper “The Boise Statesman.”
The Governor was Mr. Bunn, 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-Mormon. No Mormon could hold an office or act as juror. They fought the Mormons on the Polygamy 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.
Some time 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 had done 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 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. In 1882 D.L. Evans, of Malad, was elected to the House of Representatives. The U.S. 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 Grandmother and her boys were working their land and getting better established. Grandmother was a hardworking, courageous woman, and she taught her boys to work as soon as they were old enough.
Grandmother 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. 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. Grandmother and two younger boys stayed on the farm and worked together in a partnership which lasted more than forty years. In her later years Grandmother 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. He was serving as Senator for the State of Idaho at the time. Grandma, although in her middle sixties, reared the baby, Emily, to maturity. She lived to see her grown, happily married and the mother of two children.
In 1884 the Church Co-op Store at Malad became bankrupt and the two boys, David L., and Lorenzo L., bought it from the receivers. They were both teaching school – one in Malad, and 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.
Grandmother was faithful in her church work. She was treasurer of the Relief Society for 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.
Grandmother drove a little bay mare named “Queenie” on a single buggy in which she traveled to visit her children. We could always count on her for birthdays, when there was cooking for hired men to do, any of the children were sick, or other family problems. She selected names for all the babies, naming them for ancestors on each side of the family.
She 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.
Grandmother 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, she looked like a queen.
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.
She 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, clock 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 early morning she fell on the icy porch and broke 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.
Grandmother 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 two little boys.