Sarah Eleanor Cox Peacock

Memories of Mother

By Eleanor Peacock Olsen

Sarah Eleanor Cox Peacock, daughter of Fredrick Walter Cox and Jemima Losee Cox, born 30 November 1859 at Manti, Sanpete County, Utah, died 11 July 1937 at Salt Lake City, Utah. Mother and father were married in the St. George Temple, 1 December 1880. (It took them five days to go from Manti to St. George.)

Just a few lines regarding her early life. Grandfather Cox had six wives who bore him sixteen sons and twenty-two daughters. In the early days they lived in the Fort in Manti, in order to have some security from the Indians.

This was a new country; even the actual necessities of life were scarce. No fruit grew in Manti at that time and sweets were out of the question. They raised their vegetables and would dry them for winter use.

They refined their salt by dissolving rock salt or red salt in water, letting it stand until the water was clear, then placing the vessel on the fire and boiling the water away, then putting the salt out to dry. By handling it carefully it would be white as snow.

To have soda they would gather saleratus after a storm, put a few teaspoons full in an earthen bowl, pour boiling water over it and when it stood long enough to settle it was ready for use. They used the saleratus for many things: making soap, scouring wool, washing clothes, scrubbing floors, tin ware, etc. They even had a way to get lye from wood ashes.

They made all their own clothing, even their hats and shoes. For their hats they braided straws, then would sew, shape and bleach them, and the girls, as well as boys, were proud and happy to wear them. For shoes they tanned cowhides and made them for cold weather; out of the heavy scraps of materials they made shoes for holiday wear. In the summer they went bare footed and as one aunt says, "That hurt their pride far more than their feet.”

These pioneer families learned to save and to utilize every scrap of everything.

When they outgrew the small rooms of the Fort, Grandfather and the boys built what was known as the Big House. This stands today still solid and sound and in use one block west of Main Street and on the south side of Depot Street in Manti, and most everyone knows it as the Old Cox Home.

Grandfather raised sheep, and from their wool the mothers and daughters corded, spun, and wove the material with which the family was clothed. The cloth would be white so they gathered bark from which they made colored dye.

When Grandfather built the Big House, which took seven years, he built one large, light room, which was large enough for two teachers to hold school. Rosalie Cox Driggs (Professor Howard Drigg‘s mother) taught the smaller children; also another lady, Ellen Van Buren, taught. They held classes here for old and young, even some married folk attended. For pencils they found a soft rock on Temple Hill that they could break, and it would make a pretty good mark. There were no pencils. This large room was used to dance in, also Grandfather's brother, Orville Cox, gave dancing lessons.

At one time in the big room there were three weaving looms and light spinning wheels, and while they were busy at these, and sorting and grading the wool, they would sing songs, set words to music and teach each other. They had a deep love for each other and their home life. Growing up in an atmosphere of this type it is no wonder that mother was a resourceful, thrifty person in every respect.

When she was 16 to 18 years of age she gathered scraps of old cloth and sold it to the paper mills. They made paper of it. For the money she received, she bought calico cloth and pieced a quilt and quilted. Every stitch was done by hand and the blocks are about 1 or 1 1/2 inch pieces. It is a very beautiful piece of work. I have the quilt today. It has been used but is not soiled. It is 79 years old.

Mother was a beautiful seamstress; she could make a man's suit just as nice and tailored as anyone. When I was a girl I could tell her how I wanted a dress made and without a store bought pattern or even a picture to look at, she could always make the dress exactly as I wanted it and it would fit perfectly always. When I went to Logan to school, I would see a dress in the display windows that I liked, I would write and tell Mother about it, and maybe I would make a crude sketch of it, and in a short time here would come a dress, the exact replica. It was always a marvel to me just how she did it; making her own patterns and all.

She always did lots of beautiful hand work, crochet chair sets, table covers, hand bags and doilies, not only for her own children but for friends. She knitted stockings for her own family in early days, and during World War I knitted hose and jackets for the boys in the Armed Services. She did beautiful tatting out of the finest thread for bed linens, doilies, etc. Also did netting work. Before the days of buttonholers, mother made button holes for folks when they had something fine and beautiful to have button holes in. I have yet to see more perfect, beautiful button holes than she could work. So of course she could do lovely hand embroidery.

For over twenty-five years she worked on the sewing committee to make burial clothes for the dead. (We had no morticians.) In those clothes you could see the most beautiful work. Mother was also a natural born nurse, and while she didn't make it her vocation to be a nurse she has helped many a baby into this world and the night was never too dark or too cold that she would not go, if she was needed.

She was a homemaker and a housekeeper. Her home, while not elaborate in furnishings, was always inviting and clean. And until she was left alone, it was always full of friends who wanted a night or weeks lodging or even longer.

Mother was a quiet, unassuming, modest woman - - not what you would term a public woman, yet willing to do all she could to promote anything of a worthy nature in the public. In the home we were taught honesty in all things and respect for each other and our fellowmen. Prayers and paying an honest tithing and fast offering were taught religiously. Many times mother has said to me "If I could not pray to my Heavenly Father, I don't think I could live."

Our friends were always welcome in the home; we were encouraged to bring them there. As far as I know, she didn't have an enemy in the world. Aunt Helen wrote me once that she was the most "wonderful person she had ever known.” I quote: "I lived with her for ten years and never a cross word or thought ever passed between us." She was the mother of ten children; seven boys, three girls, all of whom grew to maturity but one boy who died in babyhood. Father, two other boys and a daughter preceded her in death, so she knew sorrow. She lived a widow seventeen years.

Her patriarchal blessing promised her that she should never taste death; she didn’t, and she passed away without a quiver of even an eyelid.

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