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Dear Ellen leans that way or not." But Coombs had more to offer than appeared to Hiram and others. He came from a fine pioneer family, praised by Mrs. Pratt, showed an enterprising spirit in various ways, became sheriff of Beaver County during the late 18705 and early i88os, and though Ellen married him while he was out of the church she brought him to rebaptism. During the years Ellen was married to Coombs she continued to teach school, filling a contract to teach in Parowan before returning to set up housekeeping in Beaver and care for her little family of three girls. Extant letters and journal entries clearly portray a life of activity in the church, of Relief Society affairs, visits with family and friends, and an endless round of socials and parties. Ellen was active in the women's rights movement in Utah and in this connection and that of Relief Society work she carried on a correspondence with Emmeline B. Wells and Eliza R. Snow, leaders of Mormon women. Ellen and John were congenial in many respects - they both liked music, dancing, and poetry. They attended the dedication of the St. George Temple, April 6, 1877, and thereafter Ellen attended temple services with her mother and Aunt Caroline. John tried his hand at various businesses - a hotel in Beaver, a liquor and grocery store in Beaver and later in Parowan, and county sheriff. During these years Ellen's sister Ann Louise married Thomas Willis, a marriage that disappointed mother, family, and friends. In February 1877 John and Lois left Beaver. The Hunts moved to Sevier Valley, then to New Mexico, and later settled in Snowflake, Arizona. Family contacts continued though, for their daughter Ida spent eighteen months thereafter with her grandmother. Ellen's Nellie married William J. Jones, a rough, hard-working young man, August i, 1878. That same August William McGary wrote Ellen, once again proposing marriage to her. His wife had died. Ellen expressed herself in a letter from Beaver, August 21, 1878: "We are now comparative strangers: would it not be a rash move 70 |
