History of Lovina Nicholson Sylvester Berry

History of Lovina Nicholson Sylvester Berry 

Lovina on her 100th birthday

(As dictated to Jessie Eagar (a granddaughter)

I Lovina Nicholson Sylvester Berry was born on the twenty-fourth of June in 1854, at Springville, Utah County, Utah, the eighth child of James and Rebecca Sylvester. Our family lived in Springville nine years.

I remember the hard times there. One winter we had to ration our food. My father and two older sisters gleaned twenty bushels of wheat and it was ground into flour which had to last all winter. Mother would make small biscuits and we could each have two a day. Mother said that after times were better we still wanted our two biscuits a day.

When I was nine years old I moved with my parents to Gunnison, Sanpete County, Utah. My father was advised to go there by the church authorities because he was a blacksmith and one was needed there. The settlement was first settled down along the Sand Pitch River and it was a very muddy stream. In the spring the water overflowed the banks and went all over the country. We had to move out of our two nice rooms onto higher ground. The settlement was later moved upon the bench where it still stands.

I was well acquainted with Chief Black Hawk and his wife. My father and mother were in the choir practice was held at our place. Chief Black Hawk and his wife used to come and listen to them sing and were very interested. Mrs. Black Hawk was very pretty.

I well remember when the news came to Gunnison that Mr. Lowery from Manti had whipped an Indian boy and the Indians had gone on the war path. The war lasted for several years.

The Black Hawk Indian War was raging during the time we lived in Gunnison and a fort was built for the protection of the settlers. They were all counseled to build their houses in such a way that the back of each house formed a part of the fort. A space was left between the houses which were roofed to form a kitchen for each family. At the back of the wall were port holes which could be used to shoot through if necessity demanded. There were four gates to the fort and these were guarded both night and day. Two picket guards were stationed outside of the fort. On the hill west of Gunnison was placed straw with which torches could be made to flash a signal in case any evidence was given of the approach of Indians. The picket guards could signal the gate guards which would prepare them for fear of an outbreak in the town. The guards could signal this way because they were often too far away for their voices to be heard.

The men had to go in crowds to put their crops in. A large number of men together gave protection to themselves from the Indians. In fact, all of their work was done by a large number of men together such as wood hauling for their fires; going to the mill at Manti or traveling in any form. Anyone who disobeyed counsel,” to travel in groups”, was endangering his life and those of his dear ones.

All the towns above Gunnison on Sevier River were broken up on account of the Indians taking their teams and cattle; breaking into their towns etc. The men from Gunnison had to help other settlement to move their people to the fort for protection. I well remember seeing the oxen train coming into town with the upriver people.

Each of the families in Gunnison had to take in another family for winter. My family took two families. John Angus’s family lived in our blacksmith shop and Brown’s family of five lived in our home with us.

We children used to have a playhouse down by the creek at a place called Rocky Point. It was a little cave where we played. We felt terrible to thin we couldn’t go outside the fort. Son one day we ran away to visit our play house. There was a saw mill down there and a mill pond with duck swimming on the pond. It was an ideal place to play, but in the midst of our play my sister Rose called, “Oh it’s Indians.” Little Lucy Brown, a playmate was very frightened and in her excitement she said, “He bobbed up his head and was dressed in buck skin”, as sh ran to town screaming, “Indians”. Our parents were very frightened and came running. Now, it was our turn to be frightened for we thought they were Indians and ran and hid in the cave. We were scared nearly to death. We were glad to find that it was our parents instead. Although they gave us a good scolding and we were told to never go outside the fort again.

At the close of the Black Hawk War and the last season we lived in Gunnison, before time to harvestr our beautiful waving grain, the grasshoppers came and literally mowed our fields This was so discouraging that all the young men went to work on the making of the railroad that was just being run into Salt Lake Valley. About this my father went to Nephi to take charge of the grist mill owned by my brother-in-law, Joseph Birch. We stayed at Nephi for about two years and then move back to Gunnison.

While living in Gunnison at the age of fourteen my partner and I took the prize for the best waltzing.

The town of Gunnison was named in honor of Captain Gunnison, a white man killed by the Indians on the ground where the town was built.

In 1869 Joseph birch came to our place and wanted my father to move to Dixie where he had been living for some time. He offered my father some land and was anxious for us to move there as he thought it offered considerable inducement. My father was converted and we were ready to go.

We settled in a place called Bellevue, now Pintura, and began construction of a house. We children worked hard as well as our parents. The soil was good for all kinds of fruits, vegetables etc.

In time we made a comfortable home and pleasing surroundings.

My father was a faithful man, and would administer to us in case of sickness and invariably we would feel better. We always had family prayers and the blessing on the food. My father was presiding Elder there for many years and was careful to keep the commandment of the Lord. He always held Sunday school and such religious meeting as he could with six or seven families for they all belonged to the Toquerville ward. A church was built with big windows and was a wonderful influence to keep the people together in faith and inspiration.

Perhaps the worst drawback of all was our meager chance for an education. There were no schools to speak of: our parents tried to teach us all they could. My parents were both good singers and lovers of music. In fathers old age he learned to play the organ, which he furnished for family entertainment. The whole family would sing together while one played the accompaniment. Father had a violin which we danced by and he also played the accordion. There were few young people there in those days and we would meet at each other’s homes and enjoy ourselves, sometimes dancing in our big room while father played the violin.

I used to go to St. George and visit my sister Mary. I once worked about a year in Uncle Birch’s shop making men’s clothing. I was well acquainted there we had good times together. (The shop spoken of was likely the Washington Factory mill that hired many people.)

In early day we first came to Dixie, we would take walks on the hills and sometimes we would visit the cave that is know as Peter’s leap, a place where the pioneers used to let their wagons down into the deep Peter’s Lepa Creek with ropes in order to cross it, and then the oxen would pull the load up on the other side. There was no road construction at that time. The cave is possibly a hundred feet long up under a black ledge. The creek flows into the North Ash Creek. Its name was given in honor of Peter Shirt we were told.

In my girlhood home we learned to work. We pieced quilts. We got the woo, washed, and corded and spun it. The Washington Factory furnished the warp and coloring and wove our filling into cloth which made us quite pretty dresses. We corded and spun enough yarn to make my father and brothers each a suit of clothes. I have never had prettier dresses or any that wore as long as those homemade ones. We knitted our own stockings and knit socks to sell.

The hospitality of our family ran high. Everybody from rain soaked strangers to aristocratic people stayed at our free tavern. Some evenings we spent in great pleasure and congeniality and other weren’t so pleasant but we had a wonderful chance to study human nature.

After regular calls from William S. Berry for a year or more I finally decided that he was trying to get acquainted with me with intent to marry. Being favorably impressed with him and learning that his wife was willing for our marriage we went to the old Endowment House in Salt Lake City and were sealed for time and eternity on the 22^nd day of June 1874. We made our home in Kanarraville. Four children were born to us before he left for his mission to the Southern Sates and one six months after he left. We had 3 sons and 2 daughters. My husband left on the third of April 1884. He had not been gone long when he wrote home. His letter seemed sad. He had had a dream that he did not like and was afraid something was going to happen at home. He said to tell the girls to keep off the horses. He had been gone a little over four months when he was killed by a mob at Condar’s farm, Cane Creek, Louis Count y, Tennessee.

We at home felt sad as if something had happened but did not hear of the terrible occurrence until three days later. I was sitting in the doorway mending a dress when three men approached the house. When I first saw them I became so nervous and weak that I could not continue my work. They were Bishop Willis of Kanarraville and Bishop Lunt and brother Palmer of Cedar City. They came in the house and sat down and were talking about Grandmother Berry’s older boys who had been killed by the Indians. (Grandma Berry was with us at the time as an afternoon caller and they talked to her first.)

Bishop Lunt who had broken the news about the drowning of Bishop Roundy in the Colorado River a short time before to Mr. Lunt’s family had now to bring sad news and was on and errand to tell of the death of Elder William S. berry who is no more as he had been shot by a mob in the missionary field. Grandmother Berry was a great help to me and my family in this great sorrow. She had borne so much of sorrow that she seemed to have learned how to endure it.

My husband and his companion, Elder Gibbs, were killed on the tenth of August. We received the word on the thirteenth and my husband’s body arrived in Kanarrah on the twenty-third and was buried on the twenty-fourth. Brigham H. Roberts and others experienced great difficulty in getting possession of the bodies which had been buried in Lew County, Tennessee for three days. B.H. Roberts disguised himself and let the reigns of the horses loose; in this way the Lord aided him in procuring the remains of the two elders and to ship them to respective homes. Elder Cowley accompanied my husband’s body home from Salt Lake City and preached the funeral sermon.

Sometime later twin boys were born to one of the men whose name was Bordersonand. He had helped to get the bodies. He named the twins Gibbs and Berry.

No will had been made so the property was probated and fairly divided.

My husband’s brother John Berry, my parents, sisters and everyone was kind and good to me. My five children were all under ten years of age. By careful management the property left me by my husband has been the means of rearing our children.

I was called to preside over the Kanarrah Ward Relief Society about the year 1889 and continued in that office for about nine years.

After the children were married I was persuaded by my sister Rose Jarvis, who was interested in temple work to come to St. George and work in the house of the Lord (Temple). She had a large record of Sylvester and Nicholson names (my father’s and mother’s names) that she wanted me to work on. I used to go down every winter and work in the Temple for our dead kindred. While my mother was living I would go with her to the temple. I have been baptized and endowed for many, among them a number of Indian Princesses. I have also done man Berry names and a great many sealing for our dead.

The winter of 1912 while moving to St. George to do Temple work the spring seat of our wagon was thrown off when we were going through a sand wash near a place called Grapevine and I was thrown against a rock and broke both wrists. It took practically all winter to heal.

I sold my home in Kanarrah and bought one in St. George to be near the Temple.

On February 15^th, 1924, I was set apart as an ordinance worker in the St. George Temple by President David H. Cannon. I was a temple Ordinance Worker for ten years. I stayed until December 7, 1934, when through and accident I had one wrist broken again in the same place on the same day of the same month as they were both broken before. I could not go to the temple anymore after that. I was then eighty years old.

During the time I was working in the temple a prize was offered to the older women for the one keeping her hair looking the nicest and to my delight I was the one chosen to receive the prize which was a permanent.

I can count my blessings, and my faith in the gospel is strong and wavering. Although many trials have come my way, not only the death of my husband in early womanhood but the death of two married sons: one died of pneumonia in 1927 and the other killed in the Castle Gate Coal Mine disaster on the 8^th of March 1924: and infant grandson Arthur died also.

I have had one son and two grandsons who filled missions for the L. . . church.

After being hurt I have made my home in Hurricane with my daughter Emma, who has been very kind to me. I have one other son living in Colorado, now past eighty years old.

At 98 years of age Lavina Berry had: 5 children (three have died),

27 grandchildren, 53 great grandchildren, 16 great great grandchildren.

Edward died on November 17, 1901 in Mexico. A headstone was constructed for him and his family in the Bunkerville Cemetery, Clark County, Nevada. The U.S. Mormon Battalion and family members memorialized his grave on October 10, 1998, by placing a beautiful bronze plaque on his grave