Great-great Grandma Wight
05/11/2005 03:57 a.m.
I spent much of Tuesday evening re-writing this account of the life of my grandmother's grandmother. I think it's worth sharing:

Mary Hurren Wight was born in 1848 in Suffolk, England, and was the daughter of James Hurren and Eliza Reeder; she was the oldest of their eleven children. Mary went to school for only a short time, where she learned her letters and how to do a little sewing. When she was about 8 years of age, her family, for religious purposes, left their beloved Suffolk, never to return again.

In 1856 the family, which included her father, her mother, and their three daughters, Mary, Sarah, and Emma, left England for Utah. In June, after seven weeks at sea, they arrived in New York, where they caught a train to Iowa. There, they stayed for a few weeks while they made handcarts and tents, and then traveled on to Winter Quarters in Nebraska.

The handcart company that they belonged to was headed by James D. Willie. On the day they started out, Mary’s mother gave birth to a baby girl, who died two weeks later. The company started out with a fairly good supply of food, a few wagons, some horses, mules, and hand carts. As time went on, the Indians stole some of their animals which made the loads too heavy to carry. People made piles of their precious supplies and burned them. When food became scarce, they bought a little buffalo meat from soldiers who they met along the way, and they ate the red berries that they found growing on wild rose bushes.

One day Mary and three other children became lost. It took one night and half the next day before they were found. They had huddled closely together and had listened to hungry wolves that growled in the night. You can imagine how thankful their parents were when the children were found; they had never expected to see them alive again.

When they got to Wyoming, Mary’s family ran out of food. Her father, while hunting the sagebrush, found a piece of raw hide, which had been left by some previous travelers. He cleaned, scraped, and cooked it; and the family ate it eagerly. Each portion of rawhide was only about two inches square, but as they chewed on it, it got bigger, and they received some nourishment from it. By this time Mary had walked about 1,000 miles and from the extreme cold, her feet and legs had become frozen. From that time on she had to ride.

Many of the people in the Willie Handcart Company became sick from fatigue, hunger, and cold; many were buried along the way, including Mary’s little playmate and companion. As Mary could not walk, her uncle carried her to the graveside in order for her to see her little friend for the last time. The ground was frozen so solid that the graves could not be dug very deeply. The bodies were wrapped in blankets or whatever they had, and then some brush or dirt was placed upon them. Mary’s own aunt while gathering sticks in this time of extreme cold, simply fell upon them and died.

The handcart company got caught in an early blizzard and had gone two days without any food when they heard the sound of creaking wagon wheels squeaking on the frozen, snow-covered ground. When they realized that it was help, sent to them from Salt Lake City, they wept with joy and fell on their knees in thankfulness. Those who survived this terrible trial finally arrived in the Salt Lake Valley on November 9, 1856.

Mary’s father called the doctor in to see what he could do for Mary’s feet and legs, but when he saw her condition, he said, “What is the use of sending for me? She’ll die. No possible chance for her.” But when he saw Mary and her mother in tears, he said, “Well, I can help her to die easier by taking one leg off above the knee, and the other off just below.” But Mary’s mother said, “No! If she must die, she’ll go as she is.”

A few days later they went up to Brigham City to meet Mary’s uncle, George Reeder, who had come to America three years earlier. They had not been in Brigham long when an old lady by the name of Snider called on the Hurrens. When she saw Mary’s legs, she told them if they would get some fresh beef and put on her legs, they would be all right; so her father walked all the way to Ogden and back several times to buy the beef for Mary’s legs. Before long her legs began to heal, but it was 1 ½ years before Mary could even take a step again.

Food was not very plentiful in Brigham City at that time. Mary’s Uncle George had grown some corn that year, but it had been piled on a dirt floor, and this caused it to mold—but they used it anyway and were glad for it. They also had a cow for milk, but it got poisoned and died. They felt very bad about this but Uncle George told his sister, Mary’s mother, that they should skin the cow, broil a piece of it and give it to the cat to eat. If the cat wasn’t dead in the morning, then they could eat the meat. The cat didn’t die, and they all ate moldy corn and poisoned cow as long as it lasted, and it never hurt one of them. They also ate sego lily roots which at that time were much larger than the ones we find today.

Mary was married at the age of 16 to Joseph Moroni Wight. Three months later they were called in a meeting to go to the Endowment House to receive their blessing and endowments. The next spring her husband was called to assist in building a sawmill in Smithfield, so they moved to Hyde Park to be near his work and also to Mary’s folks who had settled there. Later they moved to Hyrum, and eventually back to Brigham City where her husband worked in a sawmill and at carpentry. During this time their home, and everything they owned was destroyed by a fire. Later her husband went on a winter mission, and in his absence their baby girl died.

Mary had 13 children. When her youngest was about three years old, her husband, in order to avoid persecution for polygamy, took his second wife and children to Cardston, Alberta, Canada, leaving Mary and her family behind. There was much bitterness in the Wight family over this move. Mary’s family rallied around her, and her oldest boy, then 16 years old, helped to provide for her.

The family that went to Canada went through many hardships, but was instrumental in establishing the Latter-Day-Saint community there.

Mary seemed to be a natural-born nurse and she helped the sick and cared for the helpless. Many people from Brigham City of that time referred to her as “Aunt Mary.” In the years when her children were small, Mary said that it was a common thing for her to put her children to bed early so that she could wash their clothes and dry and press them so that the children could go to school clean the next day. She remembers a time when all the light they had was just a piece of cloth placed in a dish of grease with the cloth set afire, this gave light as long as the grease lasted.

When Mary turned 80 in 1928, she was still in good health and made quilt blocks, marked garments, knitted lace and braided rugs. She said that she couldn’t be idle and wouldn’t be old, so she kept busy. Because her legs had been so badly frozen in her youth, she couldn’t, however, walk very well.

Later, she moved in with her daughter Mina Baird down in Salt Lake City. On her 88th birthday she had a reception and among the many family members and guests that called to visit her that day was President Heber J. Grant. With that visit she could say that she had shaken hands with every president of the Church from Brigham Young down to President Grant.

At the time of her death in 1937, she was survived by three sisters, 6 living children, 49 grandchildren, 114 great-grand children and three great-great-grandchildren. Mary was buried in the Brigham City Cemetery.




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