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BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION:
James and Eliza crossed the plains with the second
Brigham Young Company in 1848. After arriving at Salt Lake, they
were sent to a place called Roads Valley, near the Provo River.
They next moved to Mt. Pleasant, where James was the first presiding
elder in 1859. In 1863 they moved to Round Valley, later called
Scipio. The Indians became very hostile, stealing herds of cattle
from the pioneers, and in 1866 James was killed by the Indians.
Eliza McKee Fausett Ivie died 7 August at the age of 89. She
was the mother of 13 children, and the foster mother of an Indian
boy named Shindy.
Hettie M Robins gives us the following description of Eliza
M Ivie’s last years.
“After the death of her husband, the care of Eliza fell
on the shoulders of her son Martin and his wife, Martha Ivie.
Her son moved a one-room log house onto his lot so his mother
would be near them. When her son bought a larger home his mother
was given a large sunny room to live in. I imagine I see it now
with its fireplace and one or two pots hanging from hooks over
the flames of coals. There was a very small cook stove in the
corner. Her table was next to the fireplace. Just under the window
was the large black box or chest that came across the plains
with them. Next was the four-poster bed with rawhide stripes
crisscrossed for slats or springs. The floor and hearth were
scrubbed clean enough to eat on. White short curtains were at
the windows. The white cover on the black box and cover over
the bed pillows all with knotted edging and made out of course
white cotton yarn. I remember her telling everyone once that
although she was dead and laid out of the cooling board, she
said, "But I fooled them, I came back to life again because
my mission on earth was not finished." She would sometimes
get a little out-of-sorts at some of our pranks and say: "If
you youngans don't behave yourselves when I die I will come back
and haunt ye."
"Both Grandparents had received their patriarchal blessings.
I can remember so well, seeing dear little Grandma going to the
old black box, or chest, as she called it. She would reach in,
bring out her blessing, hand it to mother, and ask her to read
it. It seemed such a source of strength and comfort to her in
her last days. The one thing I remember in it, was that their
posterity should be as Jacob's of old, and as numerous as the
sands of the sea. Of their 13 children, 12 grew to maturity,
marrying and are parents of large families. A host of grandchildren,
some over 125 in number. I am happy to be counted among their
great-grandchildren."
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