Farewell and Farewell
This was the last time F. W. Cox saw the boys until seventeen years later when Charles Edmund and Sullivan, and their Whiting cousins, were on their way to Arizona and stopped to visit in Manti. Both Edmund and Mary Ann had died by this time. At the time of this visit Charles Edmund Richardson was nineteen, and Sullivan Calvin Richardson was seventeen. The Richardson boys and several Whiting boys were cousins because the Whiting boys’ mother was a sister to F. W. Cox. She was also in the group going to Arizona. (Some of the Whiting boys went into gas and oil distribution and the lumber business in Arizona, and some of them became wealthy. One of the Whiting descendants married into the Elmer Wood Johnson Sr. line; and a descendent of that line, C. Bryant Whiting was president of the Arizona temple when Ted Bates and Lana Mangelson were married there. President Whiting performed their wedding ceremony.) When the group of travelers arrived in Manti they went to see the F. W. Cox family. F. W. Cox persuaded them to stay an extra day in Manti. In 1878, he once more organized a social for the benefit of the Richardson and Whiting boys and their mother, Mary Elizabeth Cox Whiting. This was again held in the big Cox home and, again, it was a night of dancing and fun.
Fredrick Walter Cox, as explained, was the natural father of Charles Edmund and Sullie by a former marriage. The boys, however, were sealed to Edmund Richardson and raised by him. He was the only father they knew. F. W. Cox had not seen the boys since they were babies. On meeting with F. W. Cox, Charles Edmund commented, “I will never forget the thrill that went through me when he took my hand and said, ‘and this is Edmund.’ He held my hand a long time and took pains to get me where he could talk to me and indirectly urge me to be faithful to the teachings of the gospel. He seemed never to tire of looking at me and listened if I spoke. He also said to me and Sullie that he was glad we were going down to work in the United Order. ‘It will give you a new feeling toward your fellow men that you can get in no other way.’”
The next day, after the social, F. W. Cox took all of us to the temple hill and showed us the oolite stone in the hill above where the temple would be built. He told them how Brigham Young said it was revealed to him that the Prophet Moroni dedicated that hill for a temple. He told the boys he would lay the northwest cornerstone of the temple in April, 1879. Before the group left, F. W. Cox gave Edmund a bottle of consecrated oil saying, “There was a special manifestation during the consecration of [this] oil and I am impressed to give it to you as it [will] be needed.” This proved to be a prophecy. (See the book of C.E.R. by Annie R. Johnson.) This was the last time that Charles Edmund and Sullivan Richardson saw their natural father.
It was estimated that in 1996 there were over 6500 descendants of these two Richardson boys. They were dedicated faithful church members and both had plural wives and raised their families in Old Mexico. It is interesting that Charles Edmund Richardson and Charles Whiting married sisters in Old Mexico.
Thus the sacrifice of Edmund and Mary Ann Darrow Richardson and Fredrick Walter Cox not only provided a large and faithful posterity, but also enabled their children to carry the name of Richardson. (This would not have otherwise been possible as Edmund and Mary Ann had only one son previously, George, who never married.)
The Richardson posterity from the two boys, Charles Edmund and Sullivan Calvin, are known far and wide as people dedicated to genealogy and temple work and committed to their families, the Church, and their communities. Among the descendents there have been one General Authority, a number of Stake Presidents, a Mission President, and over five hundred missionaries. Many in the group have been very successful in farming, and contracting. The professions are well represented as well—lawyers, dentists, medical doctors, professors and teachers, scientists, and accountants.
The Richardson women have been very dedicated as wives and mothers of large families. They have held many leadership positions in the auxiliary organizations of the Church, several young women descendents have been city and state beauty queens and have participated in national contests.
Both men and women are talented and creative in the fine arts and appear as authors, musician/composers, dancers, and artists.
In 1861 the big home of F. W. Cox was completed and the wives and children moved in. (This home still stands today – 1998-- in Manti.) He provided one large room for children and kept two teachers busy. The family even held some public dances in the room because it was said to be the nicest room in Manti.
F. W. Cox was called on a mission to England, April 17, 1863. He got on the ship, the “City of Manchester”, July 4, 1863, and arrived in Liverpool on July 17, 1863. He had many interesting entries in his missionary journal, for example: “Sunday, December 18, 1864--held two meetings. I spoke for one hour. In the second I spoke for two hours by the good spirit--the brethren said they could have listened all night.” On Saturday, April 29, 1865, he set sail from Liverpool with 600 saints bound for New York. He arrived at Castle Gardens, New York, on June 1, 1865. He reported that at Council Bluffs, Iowa, on the banks of the Missouri River, “I sold my watch and other personal property and borrowed some from my brother Johnny and purchased a team and wagon and brought five orphan and friendless children to Utah.”
In the large top room of the Cox home in December, 1864, there were sixteen sisters, some old enough to help with the three looms for weaving, seven spinning wheels, and a cording machine. It took five fires in the home to keep it warm. One fall a son, Will, hauled twenty one loads of wood from the mountains in twenty days. F. W. Cox got home from his mission to England in the fall of 1865.