Daughters of Utah Pioneers, Phillips Camp Biographies, Davis to Evans

page 21

SKErr cH OF RUTH EMJ\1A CLIFT EDGINGTON By Ruth Haye s Mann . Ruth Emma Clift Edgington was my great grandmother . She . was born in Birminghan, England , May 30 , 1840 . JNhen but a small child her parents and two brothers came to A.merica , settling in Nauvoo. They· were nei gh - bors to the Prophet Joseph Smi t h . Both f am ilies became very fr i e ndly . My great grandmother used to knit s ocks with Joseph Smith to see which one was the quicker , Jo seph always beat . They 1 i ved in N?u voo until Joseph and Hyrum Smith were mar·tyred, I n 1852 they came to Sa l t Lake City . Her fam ily joined t he Reorganized church . She always stayed with that Church . When they a~rived in Sal t Lake City, she married William Fngington . She was only fif teen years old at the time . She had el even child:Pen . Her brother Dan , accumula ted grea t wea l t h . He helped the family quite a lot financial ly . He made it possible for her and h er mother to bake p i es and cakes for Cox' s Army . She and her· family went t o the California gol d fields, but they soon came ba ck to Salt Lake and settled :tn the Eleventh Ward , 8th East betwee n .lst and 2nd South . She lived there until she died . Her husband died when he was about fi f ty years ol d , leaving her with eight children to rear . She loved flowers , so t hat was the way she had to make a living for her family . Her place was covered wi th every variety. On Decoration Day she would make around $100 . 00 and t ija t was considered quite a lot at that time . I t was quite a struggle trying to get along , and a few years after her death she was left a quarter of a million dolla rs $ She died in Sal t Lake City, Novemb er , 25 , 1908 . When she came from England she brought a verse whi ch was engraved on he r tombston e . It reads as f ollows : u1As you are now, So once was I YSoou psroeopna rwe,i lal nbde follow me . n