Phoebe Ann Cox Stewart
When Phebe Ann was about 5 years old the family moved to become part of the order at Orderville. The following 12 years she lived there with her family. During that time she performed so well the tasks allotted to the children that at a very early age she was permitted to work with the adults at their tasks. She cared for the silk worms for a time, spun and wove cloth, and worked in the berries. When she was 12 years old she wove the material for a dress for herself.
When sixteen she left Long Valley (after the breaking up of the order)and came with her family to Losee Valley. It was in 1886 that Losee inEast valley became a settlement. The place was originally called Clifton and was later named Loseeville after Phebe’s grandfather Losee.
Sometime after moving to Loseeville, she and her grandfather made a return trip to Long Valley for some of their belongings. Their method of travel with a team and wagon was so slow that they were obliged to travel after nightfall. The night was fairly clear, only a few clouds were in the sky. As they proceeded on their way a sudden bolt of light as if it were lightning revealed a hole right in front of their team of horses. Phebe Ann grabbed the lines and yelled, “Whoa." They camped right there over night. The morning light revealed a wash--which recent storms had made--sufficiently large to have buried their team and wagon in. This incident has remained throughout her life as a strong testimony that God protects those who serve Him.
The next three summers she spent working away from home. Her duties were to milk twenty cows night and morning and to make three cheese every day. Her wages were increased during this season to $20 00 per week. The next few years Phebe spent at home. Much of the responsibility of caring for her mother who was ill and for the rest of the family fell upon her. She nursed and prayed and cared for her mother during this awful ordeal of cancer.
One time when her mother was suffering so extremely, Phebe was bending over her trying to administer some relief. Her mother finally looked up at her and blessed her, saying, "Any girl who has been as good to her mother as you have been, the Lord will bless you with a long, useful, happy life and a devoted family. Now go out and take care of the chores.” Phebe had left the house only a few minutes when she heard her mother cry out. She ran as fast as she could to the house and found her mother had passed on. She always felt that her mother knew she was leaving this earth and purposely sent her away so she would not have to witness death at her young age.
For the next six years Phebe faithfully cared for the family - advising and caring for them as best she could in place of her parents. Due greatly to her persuasion and help her only brother later filled a mission and did a great deal of church work. She was the first teacher in Tropic. She taught reading, writing, arithmetic, geography, and spelling to nineteen students.
The four or five years after their marriage, Phebe and Levi worked in the timber in a number of saw mills in Bryce Canyon. Dave Hollow and Flake Bottom. Many were the meals she prepared during those summers for the mill hands. Levi spent a great deal of his time on the range. For weeks at a time his wife must care for the family and do the work at home. Phebe prided herself on an exceptional garden each year. Besides supplying the family with a generous amount of vegetables, she always filled a little plot next to the house with flowers -sweet peas and dahlias, asters and daisies to fill an inborn desire for beauty.
Her cellar shelves were always full of bottles of fruit, vegetables and meat which she spent hours over a hot kitchen stove to fill. Buckets were filled with lard which she rendered out each November and her washings were always done with the soap she made in early spring after the winter months had made their accumulation of fat scraps.
She performed well the many church duties she was asked to assume. While yet a girl she was secretary of the Sunday School. For years she sang in the ward choirs. She was a Primary president and a secretary in the Relief Society, In her younger days she particularly loved the young folks and spent many hours helping them learn songs or coaching their lines for amateur plays. Many were the times when she, on the organ and her brother, Orlan, on the violin, entertained a gay. chattering crowd with their music.
Always calm and of a practical nature, she was called numerous times to the bedside of the sick and dying. She assumed the duties of a midwife, helping to usher several babies into this life.
In later years she left all public work to care for the husband she so truly loved. He became badly broken in health due mainly to a hard life on the range. For years she was with him almost constantly.
In the fall of 1930 Phebe fought an almost losing battle with pneumonia. While still convalescing from this severe illness, her husband underwent an operation for poison goiter and died.
Now she pieced quilt tops for herself, her children and her neighbors. During the past few years she pieced a quilt top for each of her 20 grand children and for her 7 great grand children. During the last few years, she spent more time visiting her children, then in the pring of 1950 she came home to stay. She had experienced numerous aches and pains. Her head hurt her continuously. The removal of several growths on her head did not effect a cure. Paralysis slowly destroyed the use of most of her body, a pressure on the brain began seriously to hamper her speech, her breathing became extremely difficult. She became very weak and helpless and yet in her most severe suffering her lips uttered prayers to her Maker. All during the time when she could express herself, her mind remained unusually clear. Her memory of dates and places and events was always a marvel to those who knew her.
At eleven o'clock on Friday, Sep 22, 1950, a heart attack claimed her life, just a week before her 80th birthday.
From a history by Leona W. Stewart