Sarah Ellen Cox

• GIVN: Sarah Ellen
• SURN: Cox
• Sex: F
• Born: 17 May 1885 in Fairview, Sanpete, Utah, United States
• Died: 3 Mar 1953 in American Fork, Utah, Utah, United States
• Buried: 6 Mar 1953 in Fairview, Sanpete, Utah, United States¹
• _UID: F6CB49FC2A0111DAB9B700A0CC5D9B655531
• Baptised LDS: 17 May 1893 in Colonia Dublan, , Chihuahua, Mexico Oct 1907
• TEMP: MANTI BIC
• Record last updated: 30 Nov 2013
• TIME: 11:39
• Notes:

  Personal record of SARAH ELLEN COX GARDNER
  
  My mother, Sarah Ellen Jones Cox, died March 19, 1889, (I lacked 2 months of my 4th birthday) leaving a baby boy of one week. There were four other brothers and a sister, seven children.
  
  Two years and eight months later, in December, my father with his children moved to Colonia Dublan, Chihuahua, Mexico. We arrived in Dublan in January 1892. In the spring we moved on a farm across the river about 2 1/2 miles from town.
  
  
  That summer a circumstance happened that has had a lasting impression about fasting and prayer. The river went dry and there was no water for the crops. I remember how the corn leaves would curl up in the daytime and how wilted and dry everything looked. Father went to priesthood meeting on Thursday. When he came home he said they had decided to have a three day fast and pray for rain on Sunday. Every man, woman and child were to be in town for prayer.
  
  
  As we drove up to the meeting house in the wagon my little brother pointed off to the southwest - there was a little cloud no bigger than a man's hat. They were all singing. The rest of the family went in and I waited for my brother to tie the team. They had started to pray when we reached the door, and almost as soon as they began to pray (I say 'they' although only one man was speaking - every person there was praying sincerely) the rain began to fall from a clear sky, and of course clouds soon formed and it did rain. The meeting was turned into songs and prayers of thanksgiving and the people cried with joy. Tears ran down the cheeks of old men. When meeting was out, men took off their shoes and rolled up their pants and waded across the street to our wagon to go home and get wagons to take the people home.
  
  
  It was dangerous for me to get to school so when I was 8 years old I went to stay with my father's brother's family and I went to school that winter in Colonia Juarez. Sister Sarah Clausen taught. That summer my uncle moved to Cave Valley. I started to school there, Effa Fautz was the teacher. I only went a few weeks when I was stricken with Rheumatism. I wasn't able to be in school until I was eleven. We had moved back to Juarez and that winter Sister Stuart taught for a little while and then Henry Martineau.
  
  
  In November we moved to the farm near Dublan. I started to school; Sister Bertha Wilkins Pratt was the teacher. In Juarez I was in the 3rd grade. When I got to Dublan I went with some of my old friends to the 4th grade. I was never questioned, and had no occasion to be. It was the first winter that I went to school most of the winter and I did well in school but the next winter was the same old thing - sickness. I only went to school a little from then until I was sixteen. I am not ashamed to say I was in the 6th grade 'cause in that class ages went from 14 to 18 and there were fine intelligent people that came from that class.
  
  
  The spring I was seventeen I married [Charles Gardner] and moved to Colonia Morelos, Sonora, Mexico, where my first four children were born; Frederick Walter, Ruth, Ivin Leroy and Almer Bryant. When Almer Bryant was three weeks old, because of war we left Mexico. We stayed at Douglas, Arizona for a while, and in November I and my children went to my father [Almer] in Bloomfield, New Mexico, arriving there November 13, 1912. It was 5 years later when my husband joined me there. I had 3 more children there; Sarah Ellen, Ruby Fay, and Erma Lee.
  
  
  December 29, 1926 my husband passed away. In June, 1927 I came to Utah to have Ivin Leroy operated on and later made my home here.
  
  [One of the boys, Ivin Leroy Gardner, sucked a small piece of tin into his lungs. Almer sold out and took him to SLC for treatment. After the tin was finally removed, the sore did not heal. Later on he took measles and died.]
  
  Written by Sarah Ellen Gardner in her Book of Remembrance. Writing has been updated by Carl Cox.