Elizabeth Cook Barlow

Biography of Elizabeth Cook Barlow

By Elizabeth Ann Barlow Stringham, Bountiful, Utah, October 24, 1933

This being my Mother’s 81 birthday, and also Father’s and Mother’s wedding day, I thought it a very opportune time to start a little sketch of her life.

At the last meeting of the daughters of the Pioneers, I was asked to prepare a sketch of Mother’s life for the next meeting to be held at Mrs. Sylvia Stevens home, in Bountiful, on November 10, 1933. This, too, is quite a coincident as this location is my Mothers girl hood home. The old storey and half of this home still stands in the rear of this home, (East of 8^th East and Center Street)/, and is still in a state of good preservation. It was made of adobe, by my Grandfather, Mark Cook, in ( ), and my mother assisted him greatly in carrying and placing many if the adoben on the scaffold, because help was scarce. They and a large farm to tend and only one little boy to help older than she, and one five years younger.

Elizabeth Cook Barlow was born October 24, 1849, in Abbesechen, Wales, and at the age of three years, with her parents and Brother David, and Sister Sarah Ann, left the old country for the New– in a sailing vessel. Mother was leashed to the vessel to prevent being washed overboard by the waves.

They were six weeks in crossing. Her father and mother had heard the gospel, and had joined the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. Her father had had plenty of work and was doing exceptionally ell, but after joining the church, which was so very unpopular, those for whom he worked began to torment and dissuade him from being so foolish, but he and his good wife could not be daunted, and were very determined and decided in their own minds. They said very little, but made preparation quietly to come to Zion. But, as many others, they had their heart aches, and just before leaving, buried a little boy 4 months old, in Abbesechen, Wales. Final arrangements, however, were made and after a very rough sea voyage of 6 weeks, they landed in New York.

They then traveled West to join the Saints, but winter overtook them and they stayed in the East and worked and outfitted themselves and the tree small children, Sarrah Ann, David, and Elizabeth, my Mother. They arrived in Salt Lake City with an ox team late in the fall of 1855, remaining one year and working most of the time in Red Butte, getting out rock for the foundation of the temple.

On February 3, 1854, Amos cook was born and the following May death came to the little home and took the oldest little girl, Sarrah Ann, then 11 years old.

This then left my mother the oldest girl, and only help for her mother. She was very studious and kind to her mother, and did work way beyond her years to spare her mother, who was homesick and lonely, and grieving for her kin, as well as being concerned for the wellfare of her husband and little family. But Grandfather was very good and was always so very kind and good to the family, always a good provider and an industrious worker both physically and spiritually. Grandmother sustained him in his work and their home life and social life and always a 50-50 proposition. Grandmother was their banker and executive and always took care of everything he made. She was also just as thrifty as Grandfather and I have heard my Grandfather say there was never a time when he wanted from $5.00 to $500.00 but that he could get it, as there were no banks at that time and I never heard him say he had to give 30 or 60 days notice.

Mother and her family endured the many hardships and privations their first few years in Utah, and they moved to Bountiful in June, 1854, and owned the lot where Aunt Hannah Holbrook’s home now stands. (South east corner of Firs North and First West.)

The family had many trials and participated in the move South at the time of the coming of Johnstons Army, and my mother has often said how indelibly these incidents were stamped upon her impressionable mind and memory. She and Sarrah Thomas went out and hid their dolls and dresses and all the toys of the children in the wood piles and places the adults had made ready to burn rather than leave them intact for the enemy. But the Lord certainly heard and answered their prayers and turned the army off and they only marched through the town, and so, in time, those who had stayed to guard the property came, telling them all was well and safe to return– and of course it did not take long to get back and find the hidden treasures they had left. Mother had a spinning wheel and was early taught to spin, card, knit, and sew, as her parents had a large family, and, as you know, very little of commercialized articles of wearing apparel were obtainable.

Mother picked the wool, carded it, spun it into thread and yarn, and wove the yarns. She knitted dozens and dozens of pairs of socks, gloves and mittens, and knitting sweaters, slipovers, and scarves. She did all of the family sewing and assisted her mother with preserving the fruit by drying, also drying corn, making soap, and endless other work to sustain a little home, with carpets, rugs, and the bedding, necessary for the comfort of the family. In 1860, mother was able to go to school for three months, and about that length of time each year for 10 years.

She took the younger members of the family to Sunday School and meetings. She was a persistent singer and was early singled out by Brother Findly and, together with a number of other little girls and boys, was invited to join the ward choir, a position she held for 25 years.

She also was a Sunday School teacher for many years and very active in the Relief Society and Mutuals. She was a member of the old Theatrical Troop and took many leading, as well as minor, parts for years.

I well remember playing child parts with My Mother and father, Uncle Wilford Barlow, Aunt Laura Barlow, Uncle Joseph Holbrook, Uncle David Willey, Hugh and Josephene Moss, Carl Sessions, and many others you would all know if time would permit to mention. Mother was only blessed with two children, My Brother John and Myself, but our home was always a gathering place for the young– Mother and Father, always youthful, loved the young and loved to join in their socials and dance. Even the Holidays before they left us they attended and danced at two or three parties even at the age of 71 and 73 years, and the beautiful part of it was they really and truly enjoyed it.

Mother had a great deal of faith and often, I know, when her heart was full, she would smile and say, “All is Well.”

Mother was married on her 19^th birthday, and oh, how she hated to leave her mother with so many little children to do for. She (Grandmother) had lost another little girl 9 years old, leaving Aunt Hannah, then only 7. She buried another little girl 9 months old in May, and Aunt Alice was born in the following December. There were four other children younger, two being born after mother was married, and mother’s babies being about the same age, Mother nursed her sister Artulus and brother George and helped to give them a start. George died when about a year old.

Father was called on a mission in 1880, and all during the late summer and early fall there was an epedimic of Diphtheria and many families were losing their loved ones– some losing from two to five and six in a few weeks. Our neighbor, William Prescot, and buried a girl 19 and a boy 17 in a week, and Brother Moss buried a girl 16 and a boy 20, Brother William Rounds lost two,m and Mrs. Polly Grant lost four children– all that she had– and then her husband died with the dread disease. In four or five months, Polly Grant was blessed with a little girl, who grew to womanhood and was a great comfort to her mother, but the daughter died and left a little baby boy which the grandmother reared and loved.

The many friends of Father and Mother gave him a farewell party, but even that was somewhat saddened by the death of another son, 24, in Brother Prescots family. While Father and Mother were in Salt Lake for Father to be set apart as a missionary, a horseman was sent to Salt Lake with an order to bring a casket out with them, which they did.

Father left, four days later, and left my brother John, then 13, in one room and me, 11, in another with a desperately sore throat, and mother with a fellon on her right thumb, so she had been unable to comb her own hair for six weeks.

But the Lord blessed all of us and within a few weeks with the kind work and help of Brother Rounds we were all better, and the next year, while Father was still away, John and I persuaded Mother to take a little Motherless baby boy, eight months old, and we had so much comfort and pleasure with him. Mother and Father loved him as much or more than their own for forty-two years. I know my Brother John and I did too, and we were never jealous of any attention they gave our brother William H. Cierisch, who is happily married to Annie Cromer and they have eight children.

Mother and Father lived happily for fifty-three years and were less than three months apart in death. Mother died January 17, 1922, and father April 9, 1922, in the same Hospital. The nurse said the same room.

They left twenty-one grandchildren and eighteen great grandchildren.

Mrs. Richard Stringham

Note by Donnette Stringham Smith: December 1980

“Emigration Records from the Liverpool Office”, film #025, 690 in the salt Lake Genealogical Library, lists the Mark Cook family sailing 28 Feb, 1853 on the ship, “International”, from Liverpool to New Orleans. This ship reached New Orleans 23 April 1853. The group went by river boat up the Mississippi River to Keokuk, Iowa. “The Emigration Index”, film #298, 440, states that the Mark Cook family crossed the plains with the Jacob Gates Company which left Keokuk 3 June 1853 and arrived in Salt Lake in late September 1853, though the family records say the family reached Salt Lake Oct. 6, 1853.