I mentioned in a blog (called Rachel) that my Grandmother Esplin had 12 children and only five of them lived to adulthood; and that my Aunt Hattie had told me that her mother was strong and healthy and had strong and healthy babies—nine babies all living to adulthood--, and that my grandmother was weak and sickly and had weak and sickly babies. I mentioned that I didn’t know if that were true.
This is what I have learned since. In talking to our cousin, Lillian, Shirley found out that our grandmother had the Rh factor. That was a big problem in those days. Many babies died. Lillian’s mother, Lillie, had Rh factor and she almost lost her life and the baby when her third child, Duane, was born. That doesn’t mean you are weak and sickly.
Verna Pugh told Shirley that Grandma made three kinds of bread for meals to please everyone she was feeding. Grandpa like salt-rising bread.
Shirley wrote: After reading your blog Jeanette, I've thought a lot about our grandmother Esplin, where you said that Aunt Hattie had said that our grandmother was sickly and her children all died and her mother was well and none of her children died. We can't reconstruct what we don't know. There are a few comments from those who knew her, particularly Aunt Lillie that would counter Aunt Hattie's statement. Lillian said her mother had told her that she was unhappy in the same household with the other wife. Our grandmother did all of the housework and meal preparation. Velma told Lucy and I that her memory of the other wife was that she wore a silk dress day in and day out. That she never went out. She had a hump back. Verna Holgate Pugh was a good source. Nan and VeRene visited with her often. Verna greatly admired our grandmother. She spent a lot of time with her. She felt closer to Grandma Esplin than she did to her own mother. Verna also said that Grandma Esplin had to remind Grandpa that he needed to spend time with his other family. He seemed to feel more at home with our grandmother. I know he loved the children from his other wife and kept in touch with them.. Nan said Grandpa and Grandma Esplin were worriers. Compared to her Heaton grandparents who were fun-loving. She said when she climbed a tree, Grandma Esplin worried she would fall. Grandma stood under the tree with her apron stretched out to catch her.
I don't think it was a very kind remark for Aunt Hattie to make to say that our grandmother was sickly and her children died. In those days epidemics of typhoid, diphtheria, measles, scarlet fever, small pox, and whooping cough took a toll on the young. The children in the family who died when they were older would have survived had they lived today with penicillin and today's medical knowledge.
I have three original letters that Grandma Esplin wrote to Daddy. This is the one she wrote a month and a half before he got married:
St. George Utah, August 28, 1927 Dear Lynn, I was surely disapointed when I didn't get to see you when we came by I had to cry a little, I had so many things I wanted to ask you about, but maybe you did not want to talk to me both times. I was up there you didn't seem to care or want to see me very much. I wanted to know just what you wanted me do do about your clothes it will soon be somebody else to do for you, we didn't get down here till after dark we staid in Cedar quite awhile Pa wanted to see the doctor and Israel had some business to see about it rained quite hard just before we got here and after and it has been raining quit a lot today it seems just the same it makes me more lonesome because I had counted on seeing you before I came. Write as soon as you get time, if you feel like you want to Lynn. I love you and want to do all I can for your happiness. from your mother (Emily Alvira Hoyt)
This letter was written 1½ months after Mama and Daddy were married. Daddy's parents had gone to Riverside to help their daughter, Lillie, when she had her second baby.
167 E Ninth
Riverside, Calif.
Nov 27, 1927
Dear Lynn and Amy, I received your Letter was sure glad to hear from you I sure thought I would answer Amy's letter before this it was such a nice letter and it made me feel good to get it I am sure glad you folks are getting along So well and you have my faith and prayers that you will always feel that way we have been here a week today and it seems about a month since we left St. George Lillie and baby are getting along alright now. Lillie had quite a time with her stomach for the first four days she is in a maternity cottage in stead of a hospital she will be home Wednesday or Thursday I will be glad when she comes...it upset Pa coming down traveling in the night and he has been nervous and has not slept very good and that means I have not had much sleep since we got here and I am to sleepy to write..the 29 Pa and Frank went of yesterday morning before daylight so Wendell and I had the house all to ourselves till dark we received Lawrence and Lucy's letter yesterday and will answer them in a day or two pa says he will be in St George on the fifth of Dec Maybe you can't read this letter write soon from your loving Mother
And then this letter, written two years later when Shirley was eight months old:
Orderville, December 10, 1929
Dear Lynn, I was sure glad to get your letter. I was begining to wonder if you had forgoten you had a Mother that loved you just as much as ever and thought about you and prayed for you every day.
You are beginning to find out what it is to have a family somebody to do for and think and worry about besides yourself we are quite well I guess Lawrence told you about Willard he has sure been sick but they seem to think he will get alright Israel and Chastie are both down there with him now Lenna came home yesterday and her and Levoy will go back down Thursday and Israel and Chastie will come home Lenna says she is going to stay down there as long a Willard does and that will be a month or more Lawrence has bought William Heaton's place if they move away are you and Amy going to have part of our house it is to big for us we would need to have the water fixed differ't and some other changes made but mabe you do not want to I would sure like it if you would it is bed time so good night from your loving
Mother
PS I am sending Lillie's letter thought mabe you would like to know how they are getting along
Letters say a lot.
EMILY ALVIRA HOYT
by Lillie Esplin Harmon
My mother, Emily Alvira Hoyt Esplin, was born the 8th of December, 1858, in Nephi, Juab County, Utah. She was the daughter of Israel Hoyt and Clarissa Amanda Miller Hoyt. She was the sixth child in a family of ten children.
Emily spent her younger years and until after she was married, under pioneer conditions. She learned early how to knit and from the time she was six or seven was expected to knit her own stockings. All clothes were handmade and the girls learned early to sew a fine seam and to hem. They would have a good woolen dress for Sunday best in winter; for school a woolen dress (probably last year’s best), with a pinafore apron. In summer they had calico prints and if mother wanted a dress with ruffles, it was up to her to hem all the yards of ruffles by hand. A piece of ribbon for her hair was a rare luxury.
Mother had curly dark brown hair and blue gray eyes. As a child she wore her hair in ringlets. She said she would much rather have had her hair in two braids, like her sisters wore theirs; but she had a small round bald spot, caused by an infection on the back of her head. Right where the part would come if she wore her hair in braids, so she had to suffer with curls, imagine that.
Her first school was in the home of her teacher. Sometimes the older girls were expected to take turns tending the teacher's baby. At home she learned to sew, knit, embroider, crochet, cook, and make soap. In her teens she learned how to spin yarn.
Her father and mother were a part of the Muddy Mission, along with the Esplins, Samuel Claridge, Isaiah Bowers and the George Harmons. When my mother was twelve years of age, they were released from the Muddy Mission and they moved to Long Valley in March. They settled first in the somewhat established town of Mt. Carmel. When the United Order was established in 1875, they moved further east and established a new town there. In the company going to Long Valley was the Esplin family. Margaret Esplin was just Mother's age, and one of her best friends and of course, she couldn't help noticing how Johnny Esplin was growing up -- fourteen now and growing tall.
When Mother was fifteen years old, the Saints were counseled by President Young to organize the settlements in Long Valley under the principle of the United Order. Those who were in favor of the United Order decided to move a few miles up the valley and build a new town, which they called Orderville. Mother's father, Israel Hoyt, was heartily in favor of this way of life as given by the prophets of this Latter-day Church. He was chosen as the first president of the Order when it was organized in Mt. Carmel.
On the 10th of July, l876, when Mother was seventeen, she was married in the Salt Lake Endowment House to John James Esplin. They were blessed with twelve children.
Mother didn't do much traveling. One outstanding trip she made was to go with father to Salt Lake to the dedication of the Salt Lake Temple.
In 1924, and for several years after that, Mother and Father worked as ordinance workers in the St. George Temple.
On February 17, 1930, she passed away.
In checking how we are related to royalty both in the Church and in the world, all our connections come through Grandma Esplin. We share common ancestry with George H. W. Bush, Joseph Smith, Edgar The Peaceable, King of England, and William Shakespeare all through the Hoyt line.
—and that’s My Tribute to my Grandma Esplin, who died six years before I was born, and two months after she wrote the above letter, just to set the record straight.
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