Another family-icon-filled picture!

Helen Rex Frazier pictured some of her favorite things--family icons--in this snapshot.

Her youngest daughter, Susan, is modeling great great grandmother Elizabeth Thompson Groesbeck's burgundy with black trim wrapper. Elizabeth's delicate lacy black shawl drapes from Susan's shoulders down to about knee height. She is also wearing Elizabeth's beautiful hand crafted black straw bonnet.

Susan is standing in  Glenn and Helen Rex Frazier's 1970's T.V. room at their 166 East Oakland Avenue, Salt Lake City, Utah home.

The fancy side chair behind her to the left came from the Nicholas and Elizabeth Groesbeck home and was part of the family's 1860's dining room set.

The short wood turned lamp to Susan's right was made for Helen by her younger brother John Morgan  (1920-1941).

Elizabeth Thompson Groesbeck and money! From her journal.

February 13, 1867 Nicholas wrote the following from his mission in England home to Elizabeth, ... “If you see him [Porter Rockwell] please to remember me to him and remember me to all of my renters, or your renters, for it is all one, William Showell, Smith McGarth and wife and all others. Please in your next to state what rooms are empty, if any; it does very well to fill up with, and it interests me some at the same time. Please state whether blacksmith shop rented or not; when you wrote last you did say who rented it and was not certain how long they would keep it.”

An account of Elizabeth’s generous nature was shared in the March 2009 Capitol Hill Neighborhood Council Bulletin (pictured above). A family, destitute because of illness and unemployment, rented a cottage (according to some reports this was the house at 76 West 200 North) from the Groesbecks. A puzzled friend asked the husband where he got the money to pay the rent. The man replied, “We receive the rent money from Mrs. Groesbeck. She comes around with the rent money a day or two before her husband comes around to collect it.”

Discovering Elizabeth's 1875-1883 journal clarifies many things. She felt entitled to direct some of her family's money to things she valued.  The account preserved in this 2009 Community Bulletin is reflected further in these journal entries.

March 1^st 1877 I rose prity early went down stairs get the churning redy then I went upstairs to do the work there   found Brother Groesbeck rather cross about sum vases that Mellie had got for apreacnt [a present] for me   this maid me feel raither bad as he had let agrait meney thousands of dolers go   I felt to say never mind those litel vases they wold not brake eneyone up   make your self happy as you can for I shall spen all the money I git holt of    I attended a funerel in the after noon of a littel boy by the name of Olson [Olaf Chas. Olson 1872-1877 (FamilySearch.org)]

January 1878 Wednesday 16^th I went to the picture gallery and thare I seen apicture of Jeneral Washington  I liked it and bot it   paid tenn dalers I knew that my Husband wold not like to have me spend

And thus Elizabeth needed to do some things in secret.

And then I went to my sewing. A little from Elizabeth Thompson Groesbeck's journal.

This 1882 picture by Sydney P. Hall of North American Indians being baptized appears to have originated here

On the 1^st day of March, 1875 great great grandmother Elizabeth Groesbeck wrote in her journal that her relief society president, Sister Hide (Marinda Nancy Johnson Hyde, president of the 17^th Ward Relief Society) asked her to sew some clothing for the Indians “to go threw the house.”

While transcribing Elizabeth Thompson Groesbeck’s journal it was presumed she was referring to the Endowment House.

Page 1 1875

Monday March 1^st helpt to do the washing and in the afternoon Sister Hide [Hyde] called on me and wanted me to help fix sum close for the Indians to go threw the house [Endowment House] 

Journal entries from Frederick Kesler, a mill-wright and bishop of the Salt Lake 16th Ward, in this Juvenile Instructor blog post by J. Stapley, indicate he was building a house and font for the Lamanites.

[Frederick] Kesler's March 20 [1875] entry simply states: "Looking after materials for indian House & font to Baptising them in[.]" In the following days Kesler secured wood, piping, and the services of carpenters to construct this house and font. Then on Sunday, March 28, Kesler attended the dedicatory services for the font. I'm not exactly sure why they didn't use the endowment house font, in which Kesler frequently baptized people (first baptisms as well as for the renewal of covenants). The details about this font are, however, liturgical gold. At the end of the dedicatory details, Kesler notes that it was "the first Font build & Dedicated by the Holy priesthood for the Baptizing of the remnants of Jacob in this last dispensation & by myself[.]" In the following days, Kesler records baptizing in it.

Continuing with Elizabeth's journal
Page 2 March 1875

Wedens 3rd helpt with the work in the morning then I went to help make sum dreses for the Lamonits [Lamanites]

Thursday 4^th  don sum sewing and then I went to the relief society and after I returned Ann cum over and tuck me to the book store and I paid six dolers for the books I had bot

Friday 5^th Sarah Birbedg cum over and staid all day  Mis Cook cald to settle sum disabell fealins [disagreeable feelings] with Rosena

Saturday 6^th done the baking and cleaning and then I went to my sewing but did not domutch before I had comeney cum in.

Elizabeth Thompson Groesbeck ... then I went to my sewing ... concluded.

(Elizabeth's journal entries regarding her friendship with Harriette White, continued from here.)

March, 1877, Thursday 15^th don the work up stairs   then I had to tack another trip to the store for sheating bot 20 dolers worth [1]   met Sister Hook on the way to see me   she cum hom with me and helpt to make eaight sheets   Brother Groesbeck had gon to York  and would not be home til evening  I went to the Society for afew minets after that we went to see Sister [Harriet]White

That was Elizabeth’s last journal entry wherein she mentioned Sister White.  Elizabeth wasn’t writing in her journal at all leading up to Harriette’s October 14, 1877 [2] passing.

Early the following year Brother White went to talk with Elizabeth.

February 1878, Monday 11^th started to cut out sum shirts for Joseph just then Brother [John] White cum in and asked for me   I told him to cum in and so he did    he told me that his Daughter Maryann had seen her Mother agane   I felt rather seuryesus [serious] as she had seen me in the room with her Mother

Elizabeth wrote a week later that she went up to see Brother White and found both of his daughters at home with him. Elizabeth didn’t write anything further about that visit. Nor did she write about their mother Harriett. Nor did she again mention Maryann having seen Elizabeth with her mother.

On Thursday April 9, 1878, Elizabeth wrote that she took the cakes over to the school house and told the sisters she would help, if there was anything she could do. They told her there was plenty of help without hers.

I cum home went and got Mellie and then we attended Brother Whites weding  had areal nise time

John White (1808-1885) married Sarah Wheeler (1813-1895) on April 9, 1878.

Elizabeth wrote on Sunday, August 25, 1878

read sum in the morning  attended meating in the after noon  Mellie and Josephine ware both at home with  us   sister White[‘s] [Harriet Prosser White] Daughter Betsy [Elizabeth White, 1840-1908] cald to see me the first time sence hers [mother’s] deth

October 1878, Wedenesday 23^rd went to see Josephine  found her prity well  went over to Mellies and she was better then she had ben the day befour   got [back] at noon   went with my Husband down to see William and his family  found them all well  from thare I went to see Brother [John] White but he was not at home  had avery plesent talk with his wife  the wether had ben very blustry in the morning but cleared up fine in the after noon

Thurday 24^th had acall from Brother [John] White  I told him to cum and stop with us  I finished a scirt I had comenced sum time befour  attended the society in the after noon  the wether very fine

October 1878, Monday 28^th felt sick in the morning yet I helpt with the work  cut out acupel pair garmen[ts] for brother Groesbeck  Rosena [White] Barnet came to spen[d] a littel while with me  Sister Susana [Susannah] Hunter cald in to see us   after that Sister [Miranda] Hide came to git alittel help for a family that was in want

I presume Sister Miranda Hide continued as the Seventeenth Ward Relief Society President, the calling she received the evening Elizabeth was assigned to the 6th block.

—compiled by great great granddaughter Bessie Sanborn, October 7, 2015, from Elizabeth’s newly published (September 11, 2015)  journal transcription.

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

Notes:

[1] Elizabeth frequently sewed bedding and made rugs for her husband’s hotel.
[2] Obituary of Harriet Prosser from the Latter-Day Saints’ Millennial Star, No 46, Vol. XXXIX, Monday, November 12, 1877 (Volume 39, p. 752). Ancestry. Com.

[3] I recently took the picture of the marble bench facing East in the Salt Lake Cemetery where Harriette White and another White family member were buried. Nothing remains of any 1870 gravestones near that knoll. The bench was placed there following the April 6, 2014 passing of another White family member (perhaps a descendant).

Elizabeth Thompson Groesbeck journal ... then I went to my sewing ... Part 3.

Joseph Smith Groesbeck was born December 18, 1864

Samuel Smith Groesbeck was born July 14, 1860

(Continued from here.)

July, 1875, Wednesday 14^th had a good deal of werk on hand as it was the Berthday of John and Samuel [John [26] and Samuel [15] and I wanted them to eat supper at home and so they did   I sent for Mellie and her Husband   Brother and Sister White …

August 1875, Tuesday 3^rd cut my rapper and prity near mad it  Sister [Harriet] White cum down  she felt very poorly  I baitherd her faice with cumfeur   so she felt better… said I shold  have my reward but I told her I get it every day    we talked about the goodeness of hour hevenly Father to ward his children … 

August 1875, Sunday 8^th looked to the mornings work then drest and laid down for a littel while but had not laid but afew minets when Josefine cum and asked me if I wold like to see Brother Heaton   I rose and went in to see him   he wanted to see Brother [John] White   I tuck him up to see him I  stopt about four hours  herd Brother White relate sum of his expearence which was very interesting to me …

Monday 9^th helpt with the washing in the four noon then I cut out a pair of pillow slips fer Sister f White   maide them and tuck them to her

Tuesday 10^th attended to the work in the morning  Mellie cum over  cut out my duster and I worked on it the rest of the day

Wednesday 11^th after breckfast Josephine and me went to the store  got sum print fer cumfirts  in the after noon I maid the cape of my duster and visited with Sister [Harriet] White                                                                                         

Thursday 12^th at home all day   worked sum on my duster   sister White cum down to spend a littel while with us … 

[December 1875] Monday 6^th I helpt to wash and worked on Brother Whites garments

Tuesday 7th maid Rosenia [Rosena Lemon] a cloak  started her to school

Wednesday 8^th finished John Whites drawers and went to the store  bot sum dishes and abuten [a button] for Hyrum

Thursday 9^th went around the Block in the four noon and attended the Society in the afternoon …

Elizabeth made only six journal entries during the entire year of 1876 and she did not mention Harriett White in any of them.

(To be concluded.)

Elizabeth Thompson Groesbeck's journal ... then I went to my sewing ... Part 2.

Part 2, continued from here.

[March 1875] Thursday 11^th helpt too do the work in the morning and then I went to dress and Elizabeth cum to tell me that I had compney and shareneph [sure enough] they had packed Sister White down on a chair and so she spent the day with me …

Saturday 02th [20th] don the backing and then I don sum sewing went to see Sister White spent a few minets with her and then returned to help git supper ...

Saturday 27th  don the backing cakes and pies and bread then Brother pool cum in spent an hour with us then Willey Rounds called in and by this time Elenor com with Ann  they cum to go with me to surprise party at Sister [Harriet] Whites  we had a very splesent afternoon ...

April, 1875 Thursday 8^th don sum bakeing and finished the carpet   felt rather poorely all day   went to see Sister [Harriet] White and we had a few minets talk about that better land whare sorrow never cum and I often think how cairful we shold be to keep hourselves wright and speak nothing that wold not bair investigating by any faithful saint …

May, 1875 Firiday 7^th helpt with the work in the morning and then I went over to see Ann stopt and tuck diner   then Ann lent me her buggy to take sister White out for adrive …

Monday 10^th helpt with the washing and then I went to the store with Josephine bot sum cups and sasers [saucers] also a dress for sister [Harriet] White a young man by the name of Ford cum to see Hyrham  

Tuesday 11^th at home all day  Mellie and sister White and sister Volce spent the afternoon with me I told them about this friend of Hyrhams  Brother [Robert] Ford thay all said that they shold like to see him and I said I was shure thay wold recive grait light by visiting with him as the gospel was all his thiem …

Robert Henry Ford (1831-1890) served a mission to Engalnd in 1887. Died in an accidental fall while working to build the Salt Lake Temple (ancestry.com)

June, 1875 Wednesday 30^th helpt to do the work in the morning  then I finished sum shirts that I had been making  I maid an apron for myself  went to see Sister [Harriet]White for a littel while just then Ann cum over and wanted father and me to go over to her house to take supper and so we did  she was allway very kind to us both and I thot a grait meney times I should be very lonely with out her … 

(To be continued.)

from Elizabeth Thompson Groesbeck's 1875-1883 journal . . .

… then I went to my sewing

Elizabeth Thompson Groesbeck’s  first journal entry is dated

 February 23^rd, 1875

It isn’t clear why Elizabeth started her journal then or if she’d been a journal keeper earlier in her life. The recent discovery and transcription of her journal for 1875 to 1883 is miraculous and it’s important for this descendant to learn some life lessons from the writings she left.

Elizabeth had been in the Salt Lake Valley since October 2, 1856 when she and her family arrived from Springfield, Illinois with the John Banks Company.  She’d been a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints since her April 6, 1841 Nauvoo, Illinois baptism. In 1854 missionaries found her and her family among the “lost sheep” of Springfield, Illinois where they taught them the truth about baptism and the principle of polygamy. Elizabeth was baptized again and she and her family prepared to immigrate to Salt Lake.

She was an early member of the Salt Lake Seventeenth Ward where she’d been called to be an “assistant to the 6^th block” the night their Relief Society was organized in 1868.  It was a calling she served in all seriousness and magnified in every sense of the word. Nine times during her less than consistent journal entries she mentioned “went around the block, visited around the block, etc.”

May, 13, 1875 went around the block in the four noon and attended the society in the afternoon had the head ack

Wednesday 41th [14^th], 1877 after breckfast I went to the store bot sum bedticking and fthers [feathers]   in the after noon I maid four pilows and eaight slips   I visited around the block

March 16, 1880, went around the block and found the people very glad to see me

During the first two years of the journal her entries about a dear friend Sister Harriett White jumped out at me. They were filled with testimony and light and illuminated their heartfelt love for one another.

1875, Tuesday 2^nd attended to the work in the morning then I went to see how Sister White was giting along

Harriet Prosser White [1819-1877] and John White [1808-1885] also lived in the Seventeenth Ward. It’s unclear if they were part of Elizabeth’s 6^th block district. They were definitely very dear friends.

March, 1875 Wednesday, 10^th don sum sewing spent about all the day with Sister White  she told me many things about the poverty she had past threw in England but that she had allways felt her trustinGod and he ben her friend

This brief account of Elizabeth's association with Sister Harriett White will be continued and appear in four parts. Links will follow here after they are posted: part 2, part 3, conclusion.

Elizabeth's journal is as she wrote it. We did not add any capitalization or punctuation, nor did we change any of her spelling. Some clarification is included in brackets.

(To be continued.)

P. H. Rex Family Reunion, September 12, 2015.

Elizabeth Thompson Groesbeck's 1875-1883 journal.

Saturday, September 12, 2015, the Randolph Ward whiteboard we rolled into the cultural hall there looked like this. As we began discussing Nicholas and Elizabeth Thompson Groesbeck' family tree, Nancy added  names and connections on the white board, and we had a wonderful family history discussion--Nicholas Groesbeck Family 101--if you will.

It all began when Flora Lee asked PH  Rex family members gathered in Randolph for this year's reunion to share our favorite memory of our grandmother Bessie Morgan Rex. She was a granddaughter of Nicholas and Elizabeth Groesbeck and the 9th child of their daughter Helen Melvina and her husband John Morgan.

I enjoyed listening to each cousin's memory as we passed around a skein of yarn and each cut off a length. It determined how much time we'd have to share. 

Everyone was anxious to learn and understand how four Groesbeck descendants recently came up with our great great grandmother Elizabeth Thompson Groesbeck's 1875-1883 journal. It is quite an incredible story. And it isn’t easily explained. Charting her family history on a whiteboard helped.

Cousin Claudia’s prologue in the front of the newly transcribed and annotated volume clearly explains how it happened. 

This year's P. H. Rex Family Reunion proved as wonderful and happy a gathering as any I've enjoyed throughout my life. Thank you to everyone who came and made it happen. We missed everyone else.

If you are interested in purchasing a copy of this volume, you can contact me in the comment section below, or send me an e-mail at b.sanborn @ comcast.net [typed all together].

Grandmothers made/created their own washing soaps.

Several Groesbeck cousins are collaborating to transcribe and annotate great great grandmother Elizabeth Thompson Groesbeck's journal. In the course of gathering materials, cousin Karen M discovered the following recipes and receipts among her Grandfather Nicholas Groesbeck Morgan's papers:

These licenses and recipes belonged to Elizabeth Groesbeck

 and assured her rights to create and use the compounds.

Securing soap recipes in this manner was not unusual in Elizabeth's time.

(1820-1883)

G. W. Jackson and Company's Universal Washing Compound. The Baltimore company issued these certificates as a way to cut down on the infringement of their formula, which is included on this imprint dating from 1867. 

 Elizabeth's Family Right was dated February 1, 1868.

My Grandma Emily Rufi Frazier (1886-1972) was a famous soap maker. After our family moved from her Woodruff, Utah home in 1951 she continued to make and supply our family with her soap. I remember it as a dirty milk color. She set her boiled and brewed concoction in 9 x 13 dripper pans. After they set up she cut the soap into squares. My parents washed our laundry with those bars of soap. Upon the advent of the automatic washing machine, they shaved the bars and continued to use the soap to wash our clothes.

Emily and her descendants swore by her soap’s effectiveness to clean their clothes. I was trying to recall the smell of the soap. I can only come up with the smell of “clean.” That’s amazing when you think we collected drippings from bacon and mutton tallow in separate cans we kept on the back of the stove. They were not to be mixed for some reason I don’t remember. They were used to make grandma’s soap. Ashes and lye were the other two ingredients I am aware of. Whenever we’d travel to Woodruff, which was rather frequent, we’d take our cans of grease to Grandma. She’d send home bags of her soap whenever she finished a new batch, with whomever was traveling to Salt Lake City.

That's Emily's automatic washing machine in the front left corner of her kitchen. 

Her sons Elmer and Glenn Frazier, seated to the left, appear to be watching

 their wives and mother work at the kitchen sink

 and drainboard in the mid 1960's.

My parents, Glenn and Helen Rex Frazier (1913-1982), and I, 

used a twin tub wringer washing machine to do the family wash in the 1950's.

This 1961 photo is of Helen hanging up her clothes

 on the backyard umbrella clothes lines.

White whites was extremely important to Helen. 

Elizabeth Groesbeck's first Salt Lake home became the Deseret Hospital.

Elizabeth Groesbeck (probably 1883)

I was asked the other day if any of my ancestors’ homes are represented in the This is the Place Heritage Park.  I’ve decided I can answer that question with “yes.”

When I first visited the replica of the Deseret Hospital that was rebuilt in the heritage park, I realized that though it was the Deseret Hospital, my Groesbeck great great grandparents called that building home. Soon after their 1856 arrival in the Salt Lake Valley they moved into the three-story adobe brick structure that then stood kitty-corner across the street from Pioneer Square where West High School is now located. 

Great great Grandfather Nicholas Groesbeck purchased that building three weeks after his family arrived in the Valley on October 3, 1856. There he unloaded the wagons of merchandise he carried with him from Springfield, Illinois as a member of the John Banks Company. He established his family in part of the building and housed a mercantile store in the other part.  Their time in that home was short-lived because they had to pack everything up and move south the following October when Johnston’s Army threatened the Valley.

There isn’t record that their family lived there again. Nearly thirty years later in 1884 after it had been used as the University of Deseret and Union Academy the Groesbecks’ financial success and generosity may have helped open the new Deseret Hospital.  When it was established on August 1, 1882 Eliza R. Snow was president of the Deseret Hospital Association with Zina D. Young as Vice President. Elizabeth Groesbeck was listed as one of a ten member finance committee. [1]

Presently the lovely air conditioned 2003 Deseret Hospital houses a model of the original with early medical memorabilia and an extensive quilt collection.

1. Our Pioneer Heritage Vol. 6, compiled by Kate B. Carter, 1963, Daughters of Utah Pioneers, “Pioneer Women Doctors, ‘The Deseret Hospital,’ ” Pgs 413-414.

Bessie Morgan Rex's history of her Grandfather Nicholas Groesbeck. 1935.

I purchased this picture of Salt Lake City's Kenyon Hotel on e-Bay last year. It was cut from a pamphlet of some sort. The Kenyon Hotel Nicholas Groesbeck built undoubtedly stood on the same corner (2nd South and Main Street) years earlier. Nicholas Groesbeck died in 1884. This card states that the main building opened 1899. The Annex opened in 1900.

The following brief  history of Nicholas Groesbeck was written by his granddaughter Bessie Morgan Rex in 1935 when she submitted her application to become a member of Daughters of the Utah Pioneers. I posted it here three years ago. A close read of her hand written account reveals many interesting facts about her grandfather.

"Nicholas Groesbeck joined the church at the age of 19. He was baptized by Patriarch Hyrum Smith. He lived in Springfield, Ill, but made many trips to Nauvoo, and was intimately acquainted with the prophet, acting as his bondsman at one time. He knew Abraham Lincoln who acted as his counsel on several occasions.

"When he came to Utah he brought considerable merchandise, and engaged in general merchandizing. He later turned to real estate and mining, and provided the money to develop the noted Flagstaff Mine in Little Cottonwood. He later sold it and purchased real estate in Salt Lake. He built the Kenyon Hotel at a cost of $200,000. He became interested in the development of coal & iron, & was director of the Deseret Savings and several railroads. He was recognized as one of the outstanding financiers of his day.

"Elizabeth Thompson Groesbeck was very good to those who needed help & when her husband gained wealth she spent her time helping the poor & meeting immigrant trains to give them food & clothing.

Nicholas Groesbeck's biography begins here. An index to all of the posts about Nicholas Groesbeck is found here. 

Nicholas Groesbeck (1819-1884). "He possessed a character of rigid integrity, and his word was always his bond".

I found this undated Nicholas Groesbeck "Our Gallery of Pioneers" clipping in his folder at the DUP Museum History Room yesterday. I'm looking for a source, and a date, of GG Grandfather Nicholas Groesbeck's conversion and his baptism into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints by Hyrum Smith.

I thought I might at least find the date of the newspaper clipping by looking through the Utah Digital  Newspaper Project. No luck. I didn't find that clipping, however, I found the following March 31, 1900 clipping. It didn't answer my specific question, but gave me a lot. My favorite is the author's description of this grandfather, He possessed a character of rigid integrity, and his word was always his bond.

"The important part which the late Nicholas Groesbeck took in the founding of Salt Lake City is well testified to by the monument of his industry  and energy which still stands in the Groesbeck and Wasatch blocks on the corner of Main and Second South Streets.  Mr. Groesbeck belonged in the foremost rank of our financial pioneer stalwarts whose pictures have already appeared in this series of articles, but he was almost the only one of them who made the bulk of his fortune through real estate properties. He also engaged somewhat in merchandising and mining. His death took place on Sunday, June 29, 1884 at the age of 64. He was born at Buskirk Bridge, Rensellaer  [Rensselaer ] county, New York, September 5^th, 1819. He joined the Church in 1837, and moved to Springfield, Ill., where in 1841 he married Elizabeth Thompson, who remained his companion for years, and whose death occurred only six months before his own. While living in Springfield he became one of the bondsmen of the Prophet Joseph Smith who was tried there on trumped up charge in 1842. Although never living at Nauvoo he made frequent trips to that city, and was engaged in coal mining and contracting there. He emigrated [immigrated] to Utah in the fall of 1856, passing a division of Johnston’s Army on his way, and saving his goods only by a narrow chance. He was noted for his energy of character and for his incessant hard work at his business.  He possessed a character of rigid integrity, and his word was always his bond. His name is perpetuated in that of the Groesbeck Company today, which owns the property he left behind. The stock is now held by others than his own family, business reverses having overtaken nearly all his heirs. The president of the company, however, is Hon. John HenrySmith, who married one of Mr. Groesbeck’s daughters [Josephine]."

Some posts about Nicholas Groesbeck's life are here and here.

Additional information will follow soon.

[Note: the first newspaper clipping is too difficult to read. It follows here:]

"A native of New York state, where he was born in 1819, and a prominent citizen of Utah from 1856 until his death in 1884, Nicholas Groesbeck left in the local community many marks of his loyalty and business  sagacity . He joined the Church in 1838 in his native state, and removed to Illinois the next year, making his home in Springfield. Here he engaged in trading, for which he had a natural aptitude, and acquired considerable wealth, so that when he decided to come to Utah he was well equipped for entering at once upon his career of future prosperity. He performed adventurous and valuable service upon the plains during times connected with the western movement of Johnston’s army, and at the time of “the move,” he located and went [text missing] turned to Salt Lake where he thereafter made his home.  As early as 1858 he purchased what was later known as the Wasatch corner, Second South and Main streets (now the Kenyon) and built upon it. In 1869 he began to engage in mining, and in his operations in Little Cottonwood he opened up and later sold the famous Flagstaff mine. Everything he touched seemed to prosper, and he was always on hand to join in any enterprise that promised the development and up-building of the country. He performed two or three missions, and was steadfast and consistent in his religious belief. He was at one time a member of the city council, and he was ever a public spirited and exemplary citizen generally. He died wealthy, being a large holder of real estate, mining [text missing]."

Elizabeth Thompson Groesbeck's last year. 1883.

This concluding post on Elizabeth Thompson Groesbeck’s life is continued from here.

1883 was the last year of Elizabeth’s life, and on her August 16th birthday that year she turned sixty-three.  Earlier in the year Elizabeth hired Mary Hansen, an exceptional dressmaker,  to fashion a dress for her to wear to the April 11, 1883 (NFS) wedding of Priscilla Paul Jennings to William W. Riter. Elizabeth and her daughter Mellie assisted dressmaker Mary Hansen make the exquisite dress that is described and pictured here.

Elizabeth assisted her daughters and watched over their children in their parents absence. In June of 1883, Mellie accompanied her husband, John Morgan, in his travel to Manassa, Colorado and it’s very likely their children were left in the Groesbecks care. The children were with their grandparents in October when Mellie accompanied John on a month long trip to the Eastern States and the Southern  States Mission.

John Morgan wrote in his journal in early October that he had dinner at the Groesbecks and there discussed plans to travel east with his wife, Mellie, to visit his family and the Southern States Mission. It appeared that travel plans included brother-in-law John A. Groesbeck and his wife Ann.  

John and Mellie left their children home with the Groesbecks and a couple of weeks into the trip John wrote that he’d received a telegram from Nicholas informing him that all was well at home with their children.

That October daughter Josephine also needed her mother ’s help. She left her five-year-old daughter Sara in Elizabeth’s care.  In 1882 Josephine’s husband, Apostle John Henry Smith, was called to preside over the European Mission. A year later [1883] “he sent for Josephine to take charge of the mission home in Liverpool [England]. She left Sarah [born 1878], her first child, with her parents and took Nicholas [born 1881] with her. She had been in England only a few months when her mother died 28 December 1883. Six months later, 29 June 1884, her father passed away. With the death of both parents she felt she had to return to the little daughter she had left behind with her folks. She arrived in Utah August 11, 1883 [84]”.

On November 20, 1883 John and Mellie arrived back in Salt Lake. John wrote in his journal, "Arrived at Salt Lake at 6 a.m. and drove to brother G's [Groesbeck] for breakfast. Had dinner there and in the p.m. brought wife and children down home."  On December 16 he wrote that he "visited Sister Groesbeck who is quite sick."                 

I've gathered and posted information on Great Great Grandmother Groesbeck’s passing that can be read here and here and here. 

Elizabeth Thompson Groesbeck. 1878-1882.

A 1951 gift from my cousins.

Elizabeth Thompson Groesbeck’s life story is continued from this 1872 visit to her father.

The first Primary was organized in 1878 by Aurelia Spencer Rogers in Farmington, Utah.  She felt younger boys in the community were becoming unruly and mischievous. In her first primary meeting, “boys were specifically taught not to steal fruit from orchards and girls were taught not to hang on wagons.” With permission from church leaders and under the initial direction of General Relief Society President Eliza R. Snow, a primary was organized in the 17^th Ward.

30 November 1878

At a special meeting held in the seventeenth Ward meeting house on this date, a Primary Association was organized by Sister Eliza R. Snow with the following named officers.

President:  Elizabeth Groesbeck

1^st Counselor:  Clarissa S. Williams

2^nd Counselor:  Sarah H. Burbidge

Secretary:  Edith Smith

Treasurer:  Rosena Lemon

No history available for 1879

20 June 1880

Pres. Groesbeck resigned and the Primary Association was reorganized at this time, Sister Eliza R. Snow being present, as follows,

President:  Serepta M. Heywood

1^st Counselor:  Lavina T. Clayton

2^nd Counselor:  Lucretia L. Heywood

3^rd Counselor: Minnie Felt

Secretary:  Elizabeth Smith

Treasurer:  Rosena Lemon

Elizabeth Thompson Groesbeck was then called to assist Sister Eliza R. Snow at the new Deseret Hospital.

In 1882 when a woman’s hospital became a reality in Utah, the Deseret Hospital was established on August 1, 1882. Eliza R. Snow was president of the Deseret Hospital Association and Zina D. young, vice president.  Elizabeth Groesbeck was listed as one of a ten member finance committee.

Church History Library, Primary Association Minutes and Records, Seventeenth Ward, Salt Lake Stake, Microfilm,  LR 8240 18. Our Pioneer Heritage Vol. 6, compiled by Kate B. Carter, 1963, Daughters of Utah Pioneers, “Pioneer Women Doctors, ‘The Deseret Hospital,’ ” Pgs 413-414.

Elizabeth Thompson Groesbeck's 1872 visit to her father.

Union Township, Ripley, Brown County, Ohio, north of the Ohio River

 Germantown, Maysville, Kentucky, south of the Ohio River.

 Continued from here.

John Amberson Thompson [1791-1881]

 Elizabeth’s son, Nicholas Harmon, wrote that he traveled to New York City and other eastern cities for the first time in 1871. That fall he was called to travel east again to fill a mission to his relatives in Illinois, Kentucky, and Ohio, which he did, returning home in the Spring of 1872.

Later that summer in August, 1872, Nicholas Harmon, and his wife Rhoda, invited his mother, Elizabeth and her fourteen-year-old daughter, Josephine, to travel with them to New York and Maysville, Kentucky. There they visited Elizabeth’s father, John Amberson Thompson, and her eldest sister, Mary Dunlap. One can imagine the thrill of that six-seven week trip when Elizabeth reunited with her sister and father and their families--it being highly unlikely they’d seen one another since the Groesbecks immigrated to the Salt Lake Valley in 1856.

Mary Dunlap’s husband, Nathanial was a millwright at Union Township, in Brown County, Ohio. They lived across the Ohio River from Germantown, Mason County, Kentucky where Elizabeth’s father, John, his second wife Sarah, and their seven children lived in Maysville, Kentucky, where John was also a millwright. Depending on how one traveled, the two families lived about fifteen to twenty-five miles away from one another.

John and Sarah Thompson family in the 1870 Mason County, Kentucky Census. 

Nathaniel and Mary Dunlap family in the 1870 Brown County, Ohio Census.

From Nicholas Harmon Groesbeck, August 1916 Autobiography.