If She Could, So Can I



Ellen Matilda Ash my Great Grandmother

The washer flooding the laundry room caused me to come across some family history records I had never seen or read before....

I have heard many stories about my Great Grandmother Ash from my Grandma Beena and my dad, but I have never before read her personal account as it appears in the "The Daughter's of Utah's Handcart Pioneers - Logan Camp" her personal account as told to her daughter  Ada Peterson England (my Grandma Beena's sister).

She was a toddler who sailed across the Atlantic on the Enoch Train and then came across the plains with her Parents, infant sister and Grandmother. In the very first Mormon handcart company (Edmonds Ellsworth 1856).

Grandma Ash rode in the hand cart, with her mother carrying her infant sister the whole way. "Mother said that being out in the sun, wind, storm and wading through streams for weeks, the skin peeled off her face, her feet and her legs would bleed to her knees".

After arriving in Salt Lake City they eventually settled in Richmond....

"Several times while living in Richmond we went to Salt Lake to Conference. With an ox-team it took several days for the trip both coming and going.One time we camped in the canyon in the place now known as Dry Lake. The oxen were turned loose to graze and strayed away. Father looked and walked until he was tired out. Mother had a pair of beaded moccasins made by the Indians. She took them over to a cabin near by and offered them to a boy, who had a pony, if he would ride and find the oxen. This he did and we were soon on our way again."

Grandma Ash's family was well acquainted with tragedy, losing two sisters and a brother in the few short years after their arrival in Utah. But Grandma Ash's biggest heart break was losing her mother...

"In November 1863 another baby came to our home and in one week my mother died. Well do I remember the events surrounding her death. She knew well she was going to die and shook hands with friends and bid them goodbye just like she was going on a journey. I shall never forget how she hated to die and leave us children. I remember going up to her bed and she straightening my bonnet and said "My poor girl, what are you going to if your mother dies." She gave me her wedding ring and asked me if I knew the hymn "The Resurrection day" ...When I told her I did she asked me to always it and whenever I sang it to think of her"

Life changed drastically for her after her mother died. At thirteen she was sent to Salt Lake to live with a family....
" Father thought I would be well taken care of . They took little interest in me. I had to work hard and did not go to school. The family lived on State Street and I remember seeing  hundreds of loads of Granite being hauled by oxen and mules for the construction of the Salt Lake Temple."

Construction of the Salt Lake Temple 1875

She returned home after a year and her father remarried at that time. She said her step mother was a good woman and wife to her father. Life improved.

Grandma Ash's adult life was full of triumph and tragedy, she was married twice, raised eight children and lived to be 99 years old.


I love family history. I have found great strength and wisdom in the stories of my pioneer ancestors. I will never complain about driving an hour and a half to attend Stake meetings when Grandma Ash spent weeks travelling by handcart.  Or having to sit in a stake center or my living to watch conference, when Grandma Ash travelled for days by oxen team to do the same thing.

I know the heart ache of losing a mother, but not that of a child or sibling and not in such a short amount of time. Grandma Ash's strength sustains me in my worries, heartache or trouble even generations later. What an amazing example of faith and fortitude.

I can feel of the importance of the temple to a young girl then and know that the temple is just as important now. What a blessing it is in my life.

Ultimately as I read the pages of Grandma Ash's personal history my thoughts are, If she could  persevere with courage and faith SO CAN I....Who knew so much help and hope could come from 150 years ago? Thank you Grandma Ash.