LIFE HISTORY OF ANNIE MARIA LUND TOPHAM

As told to Bertha Topham Swindlehurst

I was born at West Jordan, Salt Lake City, Utah, October 21, 1862. I was the second child and eldest daughter in the family of eight. My father was Wilson Lund and my mother was Ellen Nielson Lund. I was born early Sunday morning, and that same day in the Sacrament meeting Wilson Lund, my father, received a call from President Brigham Young to go with a company of Saints to St. George. Here he was to assist in the erection of the St. George Tabernacle and Temple and other public buildings. Father was a stone cutter by trade and had cut stone used in building both the Nauvoo and Salt Lake Temples. When I was three weeks old, the family left Salt Lake City and started on the journey for Dixie. Since it was late in the season, the trip was a long, cold, and arduous one. On Christmas Eve the family camped just north of the bridge crossing the Coal Creek at Cedar City. The next morning the ground was covered with two feet of snow. Father cleared away the snow and placed a chair near the camp fire. Here he left Mother, Alfred and me while he went into town to buy flour and other supplies to take on to St. George. Two brethren, Henry Lunt and John Gower, came out to the camp. Brother Gower invited us to come to his home and spend Christmas Day. This we did. The following morning we resumed the journey on to St. George, arriving there on New Years Eve. It took just one week to make the trip from Cedar City to St. George, a distance of 63 miles. The family lived in the wagon box until spring when Father moved Mother and us small children to a place called Shoal Creek near what is now known as Enterprise. It was at this ranch where the cattle and sheep owned and operated by the Dixie Co-op herd were taken for summer as well as winter range. We took up a ranch at Calf Springs. It was a lonely place with no neighbors for miles around. Robert, Father’s oldest son, spent some time here with us. Mother and he milked cows. She made butter and cheese to supply the family of Eliza, or Aunt Lund’s family, (Father’s first wife) as well as for our own use. While out here Mother made her first quilt. We helped her gather wool tags from the brush. She cleaned and corded the wool into bats to go inside the quilt. At the end of the third year Robert, my half brother, was called to Salt Lake City to learn telegraphy. He needed new cloths to wear. Mother corded wool and spun the yarn used in making the cloth out of which his pants were made. He later became Brigham Young’s telegraph operator in St. George. While living at Calf Springs the only faces of human beings Mother, Alfred, and I saw were those of savage Indians who inhabited the mountains. Food supplies were scarce, and oft times Mother gave them the last pan of fresh milk to satisfy their demands. Scarcely a day passed that they did not knock at the door and ask for food. In September of that same year President Erastus Snow came out in that vicinity to visit all the people who were living in that scattered and sparsely settled area. He made special mention of the Wilson Lund family. When told we were living about 6 or 7 miles beyond at Calf Springs, he demanded of the brethren that they did not sleep until Sister Ellen and her family were brought back into Shoal Creek. The house into which we moved had only three walls and part of a roof. Mother turned the table up to make a door and hung blankets around the windows. Yet many mornings we were awakened to find our bed covered with several inches of snow. Many were the mornings our good neighbor, Brother Thorns Terry, came to the cabin and called, "Are you all alive? Dress your children and come over to our house for breakfast." Brother Terry would carry Alfred through the snow, and Mother would carry me. Just before Christmas Father was released from his public works mission long enough to come up and move us to St. George. On January 18, 1865 Ida was born. When the warm and hot days of spring and summer came, Mother was in such a weakened condition it became necessary for her to be taken up to Pine Valley, a place some 20 miles north of St. George where a settlement had been established. Here Father purchased a small plot of ground, got out logs, and built a small house for the family to live in. During the time our house was being built we lived with a family by the name of Jacobson. Pine Valley was our home for 7 years. It was here Nellie, Wilson, and Richard were born. In the spring of the year Father came up long enough to plant the crop which consisted of wheat and vegetables. Mother and we children took care of them, milked cows, and made butter and cheese. These with a five gallon keg of molasses which Father brought up from St, George when he came in the fall to help gather the crops, furnished us our supply of food. The butter and cheese we divided with the other family who lived in St. George. It was here in Pine Valley I had my first experience in school. My first teacher was Mrs. Julia Cox, a daughter of William Snow. Our school lasted three months out of each year. It was a typical pioneer school. Another experience which stands out in my memory very vividly was that of assisting my father to quarry sand stone rock from which he made grinding stones and whet stones. We worked early and late during the short time he was not at work in St. George. These stones he brought to Beaver and Iron County and sold for flour, shoes, and other articles with which to feed and cloth the family. From Pine Valley we moved to Hebron just up on the bench from Shoal Creek. Life there was not so different to that in Pine Valley. The family engaged in farming and stock growing on a small scale. Since Hebron was such a small community it took the united effort of all to carry on Church activities and furnish recreational functions for all. Church was the central feature. I sang in the choir and assisted in Sunday School and theatrical performances or exhibitions as they were usually called. It was there that I first joined the Y.L.M.I.A. In those days we had no outlined programs to follow, so it was necessary for us to make up our programs. Each member wrote articles and contributed them to the officers. These were combined into a paper which was read in our weekly meetings. One summer an epidemic of the dreaded disease diphtheria broke out. I was one of its victims, and it was only through the power of the priesthood that my life was spared. Well do I remember the blessing given me by Brother Charles Pulsipher. It was from then on that I began to get well. However, it was months before I recovered from the effects of the disease. (Three obsesses formed on my neck and Mother poulticed them for weeks before they broke.) On March 1877 I went to the St. George Temple and was baptized for my health and received my endowments. While at Hebron I had many proposals to enter into plural marriage but did not wish to accept any of them. While at Hebron Joseph and Stephen were born. Stephen lived only three days. The family became very dissatisfied there, the water dried up and the crops were a failure. At the completion of the St. George Temple in 1877 Father was released from the public service and given a blessing by President Brigham Young and told to go where he and his family could live and be most comfortable. Father was in very poor health and unable to do scarcely any kind of work, as he had contracted a very severe type of asthma caused from the stone dust and steel from the tools he used in his work. Mother, too, was in very delicate health. She could not stand the hot climate of St. George, so Father decided it best to move farther north. After some deliberation he decided to buy a farm at Paragonah. This would furnish employment for the boys, and the climate was better for both him and Mother. It was a sad day for me when we left Hebron. My girlhood friends and acquaintances were most dear to me, and they were loath to lose me because of usefulness in the activities and social life of the community. In February 1881 we left Hebron and moved to Paragonah where we were received by many good and kind hearted people to whom we soon became attached and endeared. Because of the poor health of my mother more of the caring of the children fell to me, ‘Mother Annie’, as the younger children called me. All my life I had been desirous of getting a good education. I welcomed the time when school would begin, for I hoped to get some lessons in grammar and geography. School had been in session only two weeks when the teacher of the school, Mr. Zera P. Terry, asked me to teach the first and second grades. I felt very incompetent, yet I could not refuse for I felt it an honor and opportunity. School supplies were scarce. I had to make all my own charts. I received $30 per month. This was not all cash, but I took anything which could be used by the family. I was also called to teach the New Testament Class in Sunday School. Later on I was invited to become a member of the Relief Society. On August 6, 1885 I was chosen and set apart by Brother Samuel P. Horsley to act as secretary of that organization. In the fall of that same year I was asked to act as president of the Y.L.M.I.A. I held this position for two years. Soon after coming to Paragonah as a girl I met Thomas A. Topham whom I later married on February 17, 1887 in the St. George Temple. Our Honeymoon was spent at the ranch in Bear Valley where I cooked for ranch hands, made butter and cheese, and supervised indoor activities incident to ranch life. When I was released from President of the Y.L.M.I.A., I was asked to act as a teacher and served in that capacity from 1896 to 1901. At that time I was chosen by Sister Emma R. Robinson to serve as Second Counselor in the Relief Society. I held this position until 1905 when I was asked to become president. I served as president for 8 years from 1905 until 1913. I chose as my counselors Aunt Jane Topham and Mary N. Stones. After being released from presiding I was chosen to act as Treasurer from 1913 to 1917. During this time the Relief Society gathered and stored wheat. This wheat was loaned out to individuals to tide them over until harvest time. It entailed much work and anxiety for it was sometimes difficult to collect as good a product as we loaned out. On February 4, 1917 Sister Farizine Robinson was chosen president of the Relief Society. She insisted that I act as her first counselor which I did from 1917 until 1925. In addition to carrying on Relief Society activities I was chosen Chairman and Supervisor of the American Red Cross in Paragonah. During World War I we did enormous amounts of knitting, sewing, and made thousands of bandages for our soldier boys. We also collected shoes, old clothing of all kinds, and remade them and sent them overseas to our Allies. In 1925 I was chosen and set apart to take care of the dead and supervise the sewing for the same. This I did until the services of an undertaker became available. The day was never too cold not too hot, the night too dark and stormy, the hour too early or too late for me to go into any home when called to assist in caring for the sick; and when death came to help prepare the loved one properly for burial. My church and public activities were not my main center of attraction. My home and family were most important. My husband and I were blessed with five children, two died in infancy. Three grew to maturity. The death of Karl in 1921 brought our first real sorrow. At this time Amenzo was serving as a missionary in the North Western States. Bertha also filled a mission in the Central States in 1929 and 30. In February 1925 my beloved husband died. All my life I have taken the part of Mother Annie to my brothers and sisters. Joseph lived in my home from 1921 until his death in 1933. Until the last few years I have spent considerable time working in the Temple and have enjoyed doing work for those who could not do it themselves I have always been a firm believer in the principle of tithing and have always tried to pay an honest tithe. I feel I have received many blessings from the Lord through obedience to that principle. I have also paid my fast offerings and have contributed as generously as possible to all worthy causes both Church and civic enterprises. Since I have been unable to work at the temple, I have spent my time at home here where my neighbors and friends have helped me pass the time by their frequent visits and also at Beaver where I have acquired many friends and look forward to their visits. I also look forward to the daily visits of Grandpa and Grandma Swindlehurst. Aunt Annie fell and broke her hip on April 4, 1950 and spent her remaining days in the Iron County Hospital where her cheerfulness and patience endeared her to those who took care of her. She died April 29 at the age of 88. Aunt Annie has gone to her well earned rest, and to her who has given so generously of her time and talents the words of the song could well be dedicated to her. Rest, rest for the weary soul Rest, rest for the aching head Rest, rest on the hillside rest With the uncounted dead. Rest, rest for the battle’s O’er Rest, rest for the race is run. Rest, rest where the gates are closed With each evening’s settling sun.

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