Sarah Bardell (5th Great Grandmother)

John Hunt and Sarah Bardell headstone, Fountain Green City Cemetery, Fountain Green, Sanpete County, Utah

John Hunt was born in July 1802 in Denby, Derbyshire, England, the son of Thomas Hunt and Dorothy Hart, the 5th child in a family of seven known children. From the history of Sarah Bardell Hunt written by Clara A. Olsen, it states that, “John Hunt and Sarah Bardell were married about 1825.” From Geneva Ivory Oldroyd, “Sarah Bardell Hunt was born in Denby, Derbyshire, England, on March 29, 1904. I do not know the names of her parents or brothers or sisters, but we know that she was left motherless when only a little girl.” In the Denby Parish Registers state that she was the youngest child in a family of eleven children and that her parents names were Thomas Bardell and Sarah Jerrum. Her mother was buried 8 July 1808, age 50, when Sarah was not quite four years old. It seems few stories have been preserved of the early married life of John and Sarah, but from the dates of birth, death, etc. we can understand the joy, sorrow and heartbreak that our ancestors knew at the time. The first child was Thomas, born 15 June 1826. Their daughter Ann was born two and a half years later 12 December 1828. Their third child, John Jr., was born 15 August 1831; the fourth child Samuel the 28 January 1834; the fifth child William the 27 January 1836. An event of great importance occurred then to the people of England, the telling of which she related many times and was preserved by Geneva. “Grandmother Hunt attended the celebration when Queen Victoria was crowned Queen of England. This was on June 20, 1837.” We wonder if John or the children went too. The sixth child, Nathan, arrived 10 March 1838. We gain some insight into their family life with the following excerpt from the Journal of their son Thomas, “When I was 12 years old I commenced working in the pit.” (This would have been 1838, and the ‘pit’ means the coal mines.) It was when Thomas was to go to work in the coal mines, his mother would give him one piece of cheese to put in his lunch along with his bread. At noon Thomas had a choice of eating all the cheese that day or saving some of it for the other days in the week. He chose to have a little cheese all week. So as he ate he would slide the cheese back on the bread as he took each bite until by the time he had finished the bread he would get just one bite of cheese but he could smell it each time he took a bite. On Tuesday he did the same and on Saturday he would finish up the cheese. Their son William, not quite four years old was stricken and died 12 January 1840. But death was followed by new life and on the 9 October 1840 their daughter Ruth was born. The family is recorded in the 1841 census as follows: John Hunt, coal miner, about age 35; his wife Sarah about age 25; son Thomas age 14; son John age 9; son Samuel age 7; son Nathy age 3 years; and daughter Ruth age 7 months. Ann would have been but 12 years of age, but was not listed as residing with the family. She was probably working and perhaps living with the family who employed her. Also listed was Thomas Hunt, age about 70, the father of John Hunt, living with his son and family, since John’s mother, Dorothy Hart Hunt, had died 11 July 1838. Death again struck this family when Ruth died 13 April 1842, at age 18 months. Three days later their son Samuel died, 16 April 1842, at the age of eight. A little over a year later, on 1 August 1843, another daughter was born to them named Hannah, and two and a half years later their ninth and last child, Frederick was born 2 January 1843. John’s father Thomas Hunt was buried 12 October 1847. By now their two older children were grown and ready to start life on their own. Ann was married first on 6 July 1847 at Duffield, a town very near Denby, to William Shawcroft, also a coal miner. The following Christmas, Thomas was married on 27 December 1847, at the Denby Church, to Hannah Moon. A black eyed dairy maid whose parents lived at Breach Cottage in what was then known as Denby Common. As Thomas, said in his journal, “When about 21 I removed from Denby to Claycross (about 5 miles away). After about 6 months I got married.” Thomas Hunt recorded the following in his journal in 1848. (His spelling was preserved.) “I still resided at Claycross, living very comfortable. A young man who was living with me got killed in the pit which led me to think very earnestly about my soul salvation, but I knew not where to go to be right. I always had a desire to be religious but never could fix on no society. They differed so much from the scriptures which I always believed to mean what they said. My wife loved the Ranters (Quakers) best and I loved the Methodists. I had not heard that there was any Latter Day Saints. But about this time one Joshaway Cuts with his wife came to live neighbors with us and wee new ‘is wife very well but did not know they was Saints ‘til she came into our house when we were getting redey for chapel, and asked her if she was going. She sead she was going to a house to the Saints. That week I had heard of them so I sead I would go with her that night. Mack Fletcher from Chesterfield preached a prest. I liked ‘is preaching very well and he brought forward a deal of scripture which was wat I believed. Wednesday night we whent again where Elder Ward preached. I was much delighted for I thought I had found the peoples of God, and I got some books and was well pleased with them. I attended the meetings three other times when I along with my wife whent forth and was baptized for the remission of our sins by Thomas Pionton, on the 23 rd day of November 1848, after which we rejoiced greatly, and I began to bear my testimony to all I came near and we whent to Denby to see our parents and friends who had not yet heard the gospel. My father’s name was John and my mother is Sarah Hunt. She was a Methodist and my father never was religious. My mother soone obayed to gospel, but has not yet.” From Geneva, “When grandmother was about forty years of age (she was almost 45 years old when she was baptized 6 February 1849) the Mormon missionaries came to her home, and were received very kindly. This continued throughout the years she remained in England. The Elders often had meals and beds at the Hunt home. Grandfather Hunt never did join the church as he belonged to a number of lodges and organizations which prevented him from so doing unless he should give up everything and he felt that he could not do that. Grandmother became a member soon after hearing of the Gospel. Heber C. Kimball was the Elder most responsible for her conversion. She was faithful to her religion all the rest of her life. During the time she was investigating the gospel, and until she left her home to come to this country, she used to walk eight miles to the church where the L.D.S. meetings were held. (This was, no doubt, the Belper Branch of the Denby Conference as is noted from the Journal of Thomas Hunt.) (On) July 30, 1851, I left Grasmoor and went to live at Denby, and joined the Belper Branch of the Denby Conference where I labored for some months and then there being some saints at Smithehouse, they were organized into a branch and I was appointed to preside over them, where I labored for some three months longer.” So for a short time the church was close by since the Hunts also lived at Smithyhouses. Again from his Journal, an earlier entry dated Jan. 12, 1851, “I visited my parents at Denby found them all well and my mother and sister rejoicing in the Gospel for wich I felt thankful.” (This sister was probably Ann since Hannah would have been only nine years old at that time. From the records we note that Ann was baptized in 1851.) In July 1849, four months after Sarah’s baptism, death again came to the little family. Their three year old Frederick died on the 5th of July, and ten days later, on July 15, 1849, the grown son, John, then 18 years old, died apparently of the same disease. When the 1851 census was taken the family was listed as follows: #64. Smithyhouses, John Hunt, coal miner, age 48 born at Mapperley (a small village near Denby); his wife Sarah, age 47 born at Denby; a son Nathan age 13 unmarried, errand boy; a daughter Hannah age 7. Also at that time is their daughter Ann, age 23, and her husband William Shawcroft, age 16, born in Green Lane (probably a small section of the city of Ripley near Denby where he is said to have been born), and their son John, 3 years old. (Ann and William also had another son William, born on 11 December 1849, who had died 2 February 1851 before the census had been taken.) Perhaps it was during the time that Thomas and Hannah Moon had lived in Denby that the following incident occurred, as handed down to Clara A. Olsen, “At one time Sarah went to visit her son Thomas and his young bride. Wishing to impress her mother-in-law how thrifty she was, this young wife took great pains to peel the potatoes very thin. Sarah looked on for a while and then in her old English she said, ‘Ay, Hannah, God pity thy pigs if they have to eat thy peelings.’ Hannah must have been able to pinch pennies. More of her thriftiness is told in the history of Thomas and Hannah, they presented John and Sarah with a granddaughter named Sarah Ellen names after his mother and her grandmother, born on 16 March 1850 at Claycross. After the short stay at Denby Thomas wrote, ‘Work began to be that bad I was obligated to move which I did on the 2nd of February 1852, to the north of England and joined the Sunderland Branch of the Newcastle upon Tyne Conference where I also removed my family.’ While there a son was born on 9 May 1852 named Moroni and a another son was born on 2 September 1854 named Frederick Nephi. Showing his love of the Gospel and probably in memory of the infant brother who had died six years before. Ann and William had a daughter Ruth born on 21 December 1851 and another daughter Sarah Ann born on 19 March 1854. On March 31, 1855, Thomas and Hannah and their three children sailed on the ship “Juventa” for America, leaving the rest of the family in England. No written account of this journey has been preserved, but they went only as far as Alton, Illinois, where Thomas again worked in the coal mines to earn enough money to continue to Utah. They remained there several years. On June 2, 1856, Ann had another son she named Frederick. Their little brother Frederick must have touched their hearts to have both Thomas and Ann name sons for him. Sometime during the year 1857, William Shawcroft, Ann’s husband, was hurt in the coal mines with a back injury and he became crippled from that time. Sarah and John would have received word from Thomas at Alton, Illinois, that they had another daughter born on 3 August 1857 whom they had named Ruth Bardell Hunt. And, their son Nathan was married to Harriett May Taylor on 12 September 1858 at Duffield, Derbyshire, England. They lived at Belper. Ann and William had a daughter born on 8 August 1858 called Harriett, and Nathan’s son John was born on 19 December 1858. Thomas had another daughter named Fannie Moon Hunt, born on 28 February 1860 at Alton, and Ann gave birth to twin sons on 25 February 1860. They were named Joseph and Hyrum, again showing the love these people had for their church. These little twins, however, died on the same day they were born. On 9 April 1860 Nathan and Harriett May had a daughter they named Sara Ann Hunt. That made two grandchildren christened Sarah Ann. Sarah Bardell Hunt has a sister Ann Bardell who married John Cresswell and perhaps lived near their folks. It could be these two little girls were named for the two Bardell sisters. It is also possible that Ann Bardell Palfreyman raised Sarah, since she was 16 when their mother died. By this time the grandchildren were getting old enough to be baptized, and Ruth Shawcroft seems to have been the first of whom we have record. She was baptized 25 July 1861 just before she was ten years old. Thomas again would have sent word to his parents what he had a son he named Thomas Alvin, born on 14 March 1862. The Alvin may have come from the brother of the Prophet Joseph Smith whose brother Alvin had died while young and whom the prophet saw in a vision as having been in the celestial kingdom even though he had died without baptism. Nathan’s son Lewis was on born 20 March 1862. So now there had been seventeen grandchildren born with three of Ann’s gone. Then Thomas received the news that his father, John Hunt, had died 13 May 1862, at the age of 60 years. Their daughter Hannah, then nearly twenty years old was baptized 29 January 1863, and her little daughter Mercie was born 3 April same year. That fall, 7 September 1862, Ann’s daughter, Sarah Ann Shawcroft, was baptized when she was eight years of age. By this time (1864) Thomas and his wife and family of six children had come to Utah. More details of their journey is told in their special history. They settled at Moroni first. In 1864 Thomas, accompanied by thirty-one other families began the settlement of South Bend, later known as Fort Alma, and finally called Monroe. We have three accounts preserved of the trip to Utah by Sarah Bardell Hunt, her daughter Ann with her crippled husband and their five children and Hannah and her little daughter Mercie. At first they would not seem to agree, but on closer scrutiny and checking on other accounts of immigrants from England, it is obvious that they do agree. In their histories both Geneva and Clara state, “Leaving England May 10 in a sailing vessel ‘The McClellan’ under the direction of Joseph Bull George Bywater and Thomas E. Jeremy, there were 800 on board. They arrived in New York (on) June 23, 1864, and soon set out for the west, going by train to Omaha. There the company was divided into groups. (Their) group was under the direction of George Bywater. They were met at Omaha by men from Utah who came with ox teams. They crossed the plains as members of the William S. Warren Company.” The account written by Florence S. Orton is more detailed. It states that in spite of an injured back, “this handicap did not discourage or hinder their (William and Ann) courage as they resolved to sail for America and join the Saints in this far off western State of Utah. So the Shawcroft family made ready to sail for America May 21, 1864 on the ship ‘General McClellan’. (Perhaps they left home May 10 and the ship sailed May 21.) Fred, though only eight years of age knew the love and respect his family had for England and the memories they all held for England, always yearning to see his homeland again, but this dream never materialized. He retained the highest respect and love for freedom loving America. You see the family did not leave England because they disliked it, but only because they loved America more, and here they would have freedom of religion. On the voyage to America this good family was accompanied by 802 other Saints. Their voyage was long and wearisome, 6 long weeks they were on the water. Fred told many times of how he could remember throwing his cap in the ocean… As they neared Newfoundland the ship hit an iceberg, causing a hole large enough for a man to crawl through and he remembered his two sisters, Sarah Ann and Harriett crying and said to his mother, ‘Will the ship sink?’ His mother said, ‘Ay, ay, never, never!’ And so with the cleverness and skillful manpower the ship was fixed and all arrived safely in New York in June, 1864. With that part of the journey completed they hurried toward their goal. Their route was up through Canada and down to Missouri where they joined other emigrants in the Company of Captain William Warren and his wagon train drawn by oxen. Only a part of the 802 who left England came to the West. They organized in Nebraska (on) July 19, 1864 for the last lap of the journey. There were 329 in the brave little company that lifted their faces toward the West and braced themselves for the 1,200 miles of rivers, mountains and desert and rugged country that must be conquered before they reached their destination. They also faced cold, hunger and danger from the Indians.” (Another group of Mormons who came from England the year before left New York by boat and traveled up the Hudson through the Great Lakes down to Chicago, Illinois, then by train to Hannibal and St. Joseph, Missouri. Then they went by boat up the Missouri to Omaha, Nebraska. Perhaps most of the emigrants followed about the same course.) From Geneva’s history, “At Omaha the teamster bought a load of green corn to feed the oxen. When the emigrants were told it was good to eat, they were glad for a change of food and ate heartily not knowing it should be cooked first. It made them very ill and Sarah Bardell Hunt seemed to be the most seriously affected of all. She had to be lifted into one of the wagons up on top of bags and boxes and there she lay most of the way across the plains, being tumbled from side to side in the terrible heat and dust. (She would have been sixty years old at the time.) As the Company came farther west, they found that the Indians were becoming very troublesome. The pioneers were in constant dread of them. From this time on and for a number of years after they reached Utah. They arrived in Salt Lake 6 October 1864, almost 5 months after they left England.” Florence S. Orton states, “A majority of the party walked a good part of the 1,200 miles. Buffalo chips were gathered for fire, herbs and roots were gathered for medicine, and they searched for greens and berries, and game for food. The would sing and joke and had good times, and faith and hope and love of a religion was the driving force which carried then to Zion.” The records state that William Shawcroft was baptized on August 1864, but no day of the month is given. His son John Shawcroft was baptized 3 August 1864, and by then Frederick Shawcroft would have just turned eight years old. On that day, in some pleasant river or stream, they made Ann Hunt Shawcroft very happy by being baptized into the Church she had loved for thirteen years. (In those days baptisms were mostly done in the summer and perhaps the Company stopped long enough to hold a baptism.) Florence states, “On September 2, 1864, Captain Warren telegraphed President Brigham Young from Horse Creek, 466 miles east of Salt Lake City, saying, ‘All is well.’ They arrived in Salt Lake City October 4, 1864, and from there they went to Fountain Green, Utah.” Geneva records, “The Hunt family accepted the first opportunity to ride toward the southern part of the State, hoping to reach Sevier County before the weather became too cold for traveling. But the young man (William Cook) who offered the ride went only as far as Fountain Green, Sanpete County, so there the family stayed. The winter had already begun. For a time the family lived in one corner of a building which had been used for a meeting house, along with two other families, until the boys could dig a dugout. Although it was not so roomy, there were warm and quite comfortable there for the winter.” Clara also states, “The family got busy and made a dugout, with cut willow for the top and this was covered with dirt. There was a fireplace in one end. Cooking was done over this fire in a large kettle that was used by a number of families as it was about the only utensil of its kind in the town at the time. It was a hard winter. Food was scarce. There was barely enough for the families to subsist upon. The Indians were hostile, but they didn’t seem to want to fight in the winter time. All the other families were willing to share what little they had. So the family was happy, and quite comfortable and contented in the dugout. As soon as spring opened, the Indians made a raid. The dozen families which made up the town of Fountain Green had to move to Moroni – about seven miles south – and camp out as best they could until a fort could be built in Fountain Green. Hannah was married to James Collard about this time. Sarah made her home with them. When they moved back to the Fountain Green Fort, the people were glad for houses, such as they were, made of logs, with dirt roofs and bare ground for the floor. Some had tiny windows of glass and others had only a small piece of cloth over the opening in the wall. The Indians kept on being a menace, and the people were in constant fear of them. The Pioneers looked to their Bishop for help and advice always. He asked them to put their cows and horses in one herd. Three young men were called on to herd them. Sarah’s son-in-law wanted to herd his near the Fort, but Hannah begged him to put them with the others rather than displease the Bishop. So he finally consented and sent them with the herd the next morning. That very day the Indians made, an attack, killed one of the boys and wounded the other and drove off every cow and horse the people had.” The people in Monroe were having their troubles also. Hannah Moon Hunt, at least, must have been in Moroni on 26 April 1865, for on that date their son Ammon was born in that place. One year later on April 29, 1866, the people of Monroe moved to Richfield, and the men took turns going to Monroe to work in the fields. Apparently they returned during the winter as did the people of Fountain Green. Word from Nathan, though probably delayed, informed the family of the birth of Margaret on 6 January 1866 . Harriett Shawcroft was baptized on 8 August 1866, probably at Fountain Green. On September 29, 1866, Hannah Hunt Collard gave birth to a little daughter they called Sarah Eliza. Nathan’s daughter Katherine was born on 19 April 1867. On April 14, 1867, the people of Monroe, Richfield and Glenwood moved to Gunnison because of the danger from the Indians. Fifteen days prior to that move, Thomas and Hannah had their eighth child, a daughter named Eliza Ann, born on 2 April 1867. From Florence, “Fred remembered how he would gather wool from the brush and fences where the wool clung as the sheep passed through and then his mother would dye it and spin it into clothing. He also remember of gathering wheat straw at harvest time and soaking it so it could be braided into an Easter bonnet for his sisters. Fred grew to manhood sharing in the joys and sorrows of Fountain Green.” Clara states that, “As the years passed the struggle still went on. Fighting Indians and grasshoppers, building canyon roads, grubbing sage brush, trying to get grain planted, making gardens, and planting trees. But the time came when the Indians were glad to make peace, for they too had suffered for food and clothing and many of them had been killed. “A town meeting of the white men and a band of Indian warriors was arranged. They were to meet in front of Bishop Johnson’s home. All the men were there, secretly armed and ready for battle if it should be necessary. The women stood with their arms around their frightened children and watched for the warriors to come over the brink of the hill and toward the Bishop’s home. Soon they came in sight. They were big, fine looking men, and were decked out in war paint and feathers and striped blankets. As they came nearer Sarah prayed fervently that the meeting would result in peace. The Indians made heavy demands on the people. They asked for more beef, flour and other things than the Pioneers could afford to give them. But the Bishop said that peace at any price was better than war, and the demands were met.” From Florence, “The Bishop hesitated for he thought it would run his people short for the winter. When he hesitated the Indians thought there was going to be trouble. The Chief said something to the squaws and they all turned and my how the squaws rode away as fast as they could ride down the road and up over the ridge and gone. The Bishop told his people it was better to feed them than fight them, so he gave them what they asked.” Clara states that, “Times were better after that. Log houses and adobe houses were built on land allotted to them away from the fort, and homes were made more comfortable. There were so school houses at that time, but education was not neglected. School was held in the church or in private homes. The teachers were paid by the parents, according to the number of children in the family who attended.” From Geneva, “Sarah did a good part in helping to build the community of Fountain Green. She was a tireless worker, helping wherever she was needed most. She was industrious and thrifty. ‘Wilful waste makes woeful want’ was one of her favorite sayings. She made dresses for many of the women in town, all by hand. There were no sewing machines then. She loved to sew and especially to make quilts. She opened the first, and for a long time, the only set of quilting frames in town. Neighbors and friends used them, and at one time they were completely lost. Sarah went from house to house looking for them. Finally she spied them up on top of a dirt roof, where grass had grown tall enough to almost hide them.” Clara states that, “She was always reminding the children to stand straight and sit up straight. She said it ruined a person’s health to sit slumped in an easy chair. Even in her last days, she sat straight on any chair. She was always faithful to all of her beliefs in goodness and in the Gospel. She often talked longingly of England and her son Nathan and he family who was left in England and she never saw them again. She could not understand why she could not persuade her husband, John, and their son Nathan and his wife Harriett to accept the Church and love it as she had done.” Thomas’s oldest daughter, Sarah Ellen, married Charles Hales in 1867, and had one daughter. She died a month later in November 1868, when she was just a young woman age eighteen. Three new grandchildren arrived in the year 1869. Nathan had another son, James, born on 26 June, Thomas had a son named Teancum born on October 16th while they were at Gunnison and Hannah had a daughter named Clara Ann born on November 27th, in Fountain Green. Sarah Bardell Hunt had her Endowments in the Endowment House on 10 October 1870. The same date she was sealed to William Tolley of Nephi. Whether this was a sealing or a marriage we do not know. At any rate she lived all her later life in Fountain Green with Hannah Hunt Collard, and was always known as Grandma Hunt. In 1872 Thomas announced from Gunnison a daughter named Hannah Isabella, born January 6th, and Hannah first son, named James Edward Collard, was born on March 16th in Fountain Green. In the Spring of 1872 the Thomas Hunt and other settlers returned to their homes in Monroe. Four years later their daughter Ruth Bardell who had married George Frazer, died at the birth of her son Alexander Hunt Fraser in 1876. Ann’s daughter Sarah Ann Shawcroft, who had married Geraldus Newell in 1871 and moved to Mona, Utah, became a widow when he was killed suddenly in an accident in a mine 25 May 1878, leaving her with three small children, two boys and a girl. She later married William Newton and by him she had nine more children, one girl and 8 sons. In England, Nathan’s son Lewis died on 19 February 1868, at age six, then Hannah was born on 20 December 1874; Lucy on 20 July 1877; Rose on 29 April 1879 and then Harriett May was born on 10 February 1881 and died one year on March 10, 1882. Then Nathan died on the 11 December 1882, only 44 years of age. Ann’s oldest son John had moved prior to May 1883, with his wife Annie Marie Jensen and their four children to Richfield in the San Luis Valley in Colorado. The next year a call came from the Church to aid in settling a Mormon community there. In August 1884 five families from Fountain Green left for the new colony. Among them were three more of the married children of Ann Hunt Shawcroft – Frederick and his wife Polly Ann Guymon and 2 children, Ruth and her husband Ephraim Coombs and 6 children, and Harriett and her husband Peter N. Guymon and 3 children, leaving their parents alone in Fountain Green. When the three had been one month on their way, their father, Ann’s husband, William Shawcroft, departed this life 24 September 1884 and was buried in Fountain Green. He had been confined to a wheelchair for twenty years prior to his death. Thomas and Hannah’s children were all married before Sarah died. Moroni married Emily Casto; Fred married Thomine Larson; Fannie married Hans Hansen; Alvin married Mary Alice Jenson; Ammon married Albertine Okerlund; and Belle married John Anderson. All of them settled in Monroe. Eliza Ann (Lide) married George Okerlund of Loa; and Teancum married Eleanor L. Robinson also of Loa. Teancum had two children, a boy and girl and he died at age 25. Hannah’s daughter Mercie married George Washington Ivory; Sarah Eliza married Thomas Warren Allred; Clara Ann married Earl Ostler and, after having one girl, died on 2 August 1902; and Edward Collard married Ellen Chapman. Nathan’s children, with the exception of the oldest son, John, who moved to Hucknall, Nottinghamshire and evidently married there, married as follows. Sarah Ann married Alfred Troth; Mary Alice married Thomas Riley; Margaret was married to Jabez Sanders; Katherine was married to William Maycock; James was married to Sarah Bradley; Hannah married George Frances Booker; Lucy married Thomas Hallan; and Rose was married to J. J. Parkin. Geneva states, “Grandmother Hunt lived in our home for quite a number of years – especially, I think, to help my mother (Mercie C. Ivory) with her large family (11 children) and because my father as well as my mother was always very kind to her, and we children too loved her very dearly. We had a large open fireplace, and at one side of that she had her own corner, where she sat most of the time with her knitting and mending. She had her own comfortable little rocker which was a great help in taking care of the babies. I remember she used to take me on her lap and help me dress, even after I was old enough to go to school… She attended the first Old Folks Party in the State of Utah. It was held at Lake Point out near Saltair, (on) May 14, 1875. She died on August 1, 1896, in Fountain Green, Utah.” From Ercel, “I remember Mother (Sarah Collard Allred) telling this story. ‘There was a man named John Jewkes in Fountain Green. He was from the same part of England and he would come up in the evening and sit and sit until they would nearly go crazy. After he had been there for hours, Grandmother (Sarah Bardell Hunt) use to loosen her clothes as much as she could, unbutton her shoes so that as Mammy said (Hannah Hunt Collard) she could just shake and her clothes would fall off so she could get right into bed the minute he left. But Mr. Jewkes would never take the hint and go home. At last she said to Mammy, ‘Come on Hannah, we better go to bed so John can go home.’” Sometime in England Grandmother Hunt had seen peonies and had loved them as her favorite flower… There were none of them in this country in those days but we all knew she loved ‘pinies’ as she called them, and she always wore a small red ‘piny’ at both sides of her bonnet. Sarah Bardell Hunt made many hooked rugs in her later years. She used rags cut about one inch wide and these were pulled into loops through a burlap sack with the use of a large wooden hook. Whenever she made a hooked rug there always had to be some bright red rags and in the center of each rug she always fashioned a big red flower which she called in her quaint English a ‘piny.’ So, even though she died long ago, some of her descendants have always made sure that each Decoration Day there is at least one red ‘piny’ placed on her grave.” Geneva’s history states, “She lived to be 92 years of age. She died 1 August 1896. There is no record of her death with the cemetery records of Fountain Green, and the Fountain Green Ward records fail to show it. Since she was born 29 March 1804, perhaps she actually died in 1895. Regardless of the exact year of her death she was a wonderful ancestor and all of her descendants can be proud and thankful that she had the courage to live as she did. And, many some of them always remember to place at her burial place the symbol of courage and right which she chose – a bright peony.” Her tombstone in the Fountain Green Cemetery reads, “Sarah Bardell Hunt, died August 1, 1894, age 91 years, 4 months.” On November 27, 1901, John Hunt was sealed to Sarah Bardell and all of their nine children were sealed to them. Both Ann and Hannah were alive at that time so it is probable that these two sisters went to the temple together to have this work performed. *** These facts and stories from the lives of John Hunt and his wife Sarah Bardell Hunt were gathered from the following: 1 – Sources: Denby Parish Registers; Superintendent Registrar of Belper District, Derbyshire, England; census of 1841 Denby, Bundle 188, Denby B12, p. 12s1 Smithhouse, census 1851 film at Utah Gen. Society F. Eng. 18, Pt. 72(13675) p. 75 #64 Smithyhouses; from the Journal of their son Thomas Hunt; from stories told by Thomas A. Hunt II, a great grandson; and from histories written by other great granddaughters Geneva Ivory Oldroyd; Clara Alfred Olsen and Ercel Allred Olsen; and Florence Shawcroft Orton; from records of the Manti Temple and the Salt Lake Endowment House. This history is compiled and genealogical data added by Ina H. Tuft, Hunt Family Genealogist, July 1962. (This compiled history was edited for length, readability and format. It is slightly different from the original and does not include the two English folk songs.)


http://www.wardrasmussen.com/Family_History/Blog/Entries/1804/3/29_Sarah_Bardell_files/John%20%26%20Sarah.PDF