Preserving Legacies with the Daughters of Utah Pioneers

September 2024 Meeting
of the Ephraim Camp of the
Daughters of the Utah Pioneers

When I moved to Ephraim in December of 2023. It is located in Sanpete County, part of Central Utah.

I soon learned that the locals like to ask you about your people--and they do not mean your parents. They want to know who your great, great grandparents are.

Scandinavian Heritage

This area was settled for years by Native Americans, but Ephraim as well as all of Sanpete County focus a lot on the immigrants who arrived primarily from Scandinavia in the 1850s. During the weekend of Memorial Day, this town holds a Scandinavian Days Festival, and people want to ask if your ancestors came from Norway, Sweden, Finland, or Denmark. I hear less about Iceland, but that is a Scandinavian country, too.

I have some relatives from Copenhagen, but none of them ended up in Sanpete County.

Daughters of Utah Pioneers

I joined a chapter of a heritage / genealogy organization called Daughters of Utah Pioneers (DUP). Technically, I belong to Camp Ephraim. DUP names its chapters after camps as a reference to the pioneers.

I do have 18 ancestors who qualify as Utah Pioneers. The definition is that they have to arrive in Utah before 10 May 1869, which is the date that the Transcontinental Railroad was completed. The ancestor also counts as a Utah pioneer if they died during their immigration (even if it was not on Utah soil), or if they were born in Utah before the railroad was completed.

I have already had the opportunity to present on an ancestor (Mary Ann Ward Webb, see the link below) at the Monday 9 September 2024 meeting of the Ephraim Camp of DUP. I thought I knew a lot about her. The historian for Camp Ephraim asked me for some notes about Mary Ann, so that will be put into their records. I did write a post about her a few years ago.

Lydia Huff (1797-1974), My 4th Great Grandmother

Even though I do not have a Scandinavian ancestor from this area, I do have one ancestor (Lydia Huff, my 4th great grandmother) who lived in this county.

Detail from Ancestry.com that uses a blue line to trace Lydia's residences
based on legal documents such as birth, marriage, death certificates and census data.

She was born in Dutchess County, New York but also lived in Canada. After joining the church, she lived in Nauvoo, Illinois from 1839 to 1846. She lived in a handful of towns in Utah, including Millard, Toole, and Lehi. Lydia died in Manti, a town eight miles south from where I now live. Lydia is buried there. Her first husband and father of her children was David Losee, who was born in New Brunswick, Canada.

But I am going down a genealogy rabbit hole!

Thinking More about My Heritage

My main point here is about heritage. People in this county talk a lot about their Pioneer heritage. This has given me opportunity to look more closely at my great, great grandparents. I looked up all the grandparents on both sides of my family to determine the count of pioneers. My parents have talked a little bit about those who were born in the 19th Century, but I was more focused on my own life than the life of my ancestors.

Now I find it interesting to learn more about the men and women who left countries, states, or towns that were familiar to them to go someplace that often did not have an established town. They traveled by steamer ship, train, wagon, handcart, or by foot. They carried very little with them. They had to grow their own food, raise their own livestock, fetch their own water, sew their own clothes and more.

I did name my daughter after two of our ancestors, but I cannot tell you much about the other women. However, I think that belonging to the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers will encourage me to think about the men and women who came before me--wherever they ended up living.