SALLY ADAMS-SNOW

Sally Adams Snow was born May 29, 1825, at Compton, Lower Canada. Her parents were James Adams and Betsy Leavitt Adams. She was the oldest child in a family of four. Mr. Adams was the proprietor of a modest little tavern or wayside inn to which many guests came. One night the tavern burned to the ground and the family lost all of their household possessions. This situation was a pone for a short time, but kind friends came to their aid and very shortly housekeeping was resumed on a new plan, and equally comfortable.

Sally remained in Canada until she was thirteen years of age. She says of some of the events immediately following. "At the age of thirteen, with my parents, I left Canada for the purpose of gathering with the saints in Missouri. Enroute we stopped a week in Kirtland, Ohio, and visited the mother of the Prophet Joseph Smith. It was then perilous times for him and his people, he was himself in hiding. However, while we were there he appeared and preached to the assembled Saints on Sunday. His followers hung on his words as though they were the words of the Lord. I well remember one incident related by Sister Lucy Smith. While Joseph was translating the Book of Mormon from the Gold Plates, his enemies were pursuing him with vindicative hate. Being hard pressed at one time and fearing the plates would be stolen from him, he rushed into his mother's room to hide them under the hearth. In his hurry he mashed his hand. Sister Smith pointed out the rocking chair in which he sat while she did up his hand.

"Acting according to counsel, we remained at Twelve Mile Grove, Illinois, during the five years, and then in 1843, we proceeded to Nauvoo. There we heard the Prophet speak several times. His voice was the voice of inspiration.

"I well remember that June day of 1844, when the announcement reached Nauvoo that the Prophet and Patriarch had been killed by a cruel mob. The news fell like a thunderbolt upon the Saints. Their grief was indescribable. Many thought he, like the Savior, would rise again to become their leader. With hundreds of others I visited the room where he lay in state. Thousands of hearts wrung with profound sorrow. The scene left an impression upon my mind of awful solemnity. The memory of the occasion can never be erased. This sad occurrence marks the culmination of the devil inspired persecutions of two of God's greatest and truest noblemen."

Sally told of being at the meeting on August 8, 1844, when Brigham Young spoke in the voice of the martyred Prophet. He assumed the form and appearance of Joseph, so that the thousands at the meeting believed for the moment that President Smith actually stood before them.

While in Kirtland, Ohio, she visited the Kirtland Temple and viewed the Egyptian Mummies which Joseph the Prophet purchased from the French antiquarian, Mr. Chandeler.

The years at Twelve Mile Grove left a deep impression on Sally and in her declining years as she sat by the fireside knitting, she recalled many interesting incidents that occurred there, where her father owned a Sugar Maple farm. Once each year around Thanksgiving Day, she relates, all the relatives, uncles, aunts, cousins, and friends gathered for a time of rejoicing together. The festivities lasted several days. The food was cooked in a mammoth brick oven. These happy times were indelibly impressed on her memory.

Vividly too, did she tell of the "sugaring off' days when the sap was taken from the trees and conveyed to the huge vats for boiling. The great thrill came when all helped in carrying the cakes of sugar to the large barrels for storage and for winter.

While in her youth, Miss Adams received the gift of tongues. She used it in the cottage meetings of the Saints where her Aunts, Uncles and Cousins were often present, she speaking in tongues and her Cousin Ann Chamberlain, who possessed the gift of interpreting, conveying her thoughts to others assembled. This Gospel gift was a great comfort to this young convert, father, and friends.

Sally was married in the Nauvoo Temple in January, 1846, to William Snow, and they together passed through all the trials of the exodus from Nauvoo. Her first deep sorrow was occasioned by the death of her Mother in 1848.

Sally was a cousin to Lydia Leavitt and perhaps through her and the Prophet she became acquainted with William Snow. When the Prophet first confided the principle of plural marriage to a few of his close friends, William was one of them. He in turn told Sally. Their mutual admiration and love for the Prophet enabled them to understand and accept it.

While Sally continued to live most of the time with her parents, the common hardships, the dangers and their devotion to the Church continued to unite them more closely together.

After being driven from Nauvoo they camped the first night on the banks of the Mississippi River. There was a cold rain and a heavy wind with no shelter but a covered wagon. Lydia's baby, Levi, died from this exposure. He was buried on the banks of the river in a crude coffin that rested on poles in the bottom of the grave.

After a few days the journey was continued westward. The weather was still bad, the mud was deep from the long rains and much travel. Each wagon cut a little deeper and some times the oxen could not pull the wagon without help from another team. Many days they traveled but five or six miles. It was thus that Sally Snow joined in an exodus, one of the greatest ever undertaken since that of the Children of Israel.

The first thing on arriving at Winter Quarters, on the Missouri, at the present town of Florence, was the building of a house. From the river banks cottonwood logs were obtained and one side of these were smoothed for the floor. The length of the house was eighteen feet. One log was laid upon the other with a notch at each end, to form the corner and hold them in place. A ridge pole resting on the walls and supported at the center by two uprights served to hold the poles for the roof. The roof poles were placed close together and covered with clay to keep the snow and rain out. The cracks in the walls were plastered with clay.

Clay also made a good fire place when fashioned up against the ends of the logs where a suitable hole had been cut. The chimney, leaning up against the outside was made from blocks of sod, cut out with a spade. Across the top of the fire place was an iron rod to hang kettles for cooking. Most of the chairs were made from willows. The bed for the two little girls was made of four posts and four side pieces slipped in holes of the posts. Ropes woven back and forth held the mattress which was filled with dried grass. The roof leaked the first year so William covered it with shakes the second.

The first year there were 700 log houses, many of them without floors. There were 150 dug-outs and many sod houses. The dugouts were holes in the bank of the river bed with sod or willows at the entrance. In the coldest weather these. were warmer and ofttimes drier than the log houses.

At times the water in the barrels froze so hard it had to be chopped out with an ax and melted. To add to the discomfort, some sort of plague broke out in camp. It may have originated from the Indians who had previously camped there or from the unhealthy location along the river banks. But while the people hovered in their log houses or dugouts trying to keep warm this fever raged among them. Six hundred deaths occurred at Winter Quarters. Sometimes the dead and dying and the sick seemed out of all proportion to the well and able bodied in this city in the Indian country on the edge of civilization.

Lydia took sick and died. This left Hannah's little girl, Abigail, whom Lydia had adopted and her own daughter three years of age for Sally to care for.

In the Spring of 1847, about the time the first pioneer company left for the Rocky Mountains, John Taylor arrived in the Camp bringing about two thousand dollars that had been sent by the Saints of England to help the exiles. This money was of untold benefit in relieving suffering at Winter Quarters and since corn and pork were cheap and money scarce in Iowa, it bought a great deal of supplies.

In 1848, during these trying times of life Sally's first daughter, Julia, was born at Council Bluffs, Iowa.

But it is not so much life as the way one looks at it. Sally and most of those on the banks of the Missouri were happy. Their religious experiences of the past were dreams of happiness. Their confidence in their leaders and the Church made every tomorrow a vision-of hope. Their friends and families died but this made the bonds of friendship more secure.

One of the first buildings was a meeting house that was used both for religious and recreational purposes. When the plague subsided the Saints met together socially. Something in their experiences and faith gave them an inner poise and assurance that strengthened and sustained them.

In 1850, her husband was appointed captain of a hundred in one of the emigrant companies which he led across the plains in safety to Salt Lake City, arriving there October 6th. The family settled in Salt Lake City and remained there eight years. Two girls, Sarah Saphrona and Emma Lucretia, were born there.

Sally recalled distinctly the famine of 1856, caused by two years of drouth and grasshoppers. Many times she divided her last loaf among hungry children who came begging for bread at her door, ofttimes going hungry herself in order to share with others. She relates that the usual midday meal consisted of greens, when available, with no bread being served.

In 1855, owing to the invasion of Utah by Johnson's army, there was a general move of the Church southward, and at that time Mrs. Snow moved to Lehi. In 1865, her husband was called to pioneer Southern Utah, and she and her own children accompanied him.

Sariah and Abigail were both married at that time; the former lived In Lehi and the latter in Salt Lake City. The company arrived in Pine Valley on Christmas Eve in a heavy snow storm, and on Christmas day her oldest daughter was married to Joseph Cox who had helped the family in the move south. Later they were sealed in the Endowment house, and in the Spring moved back to Lehi. The separation was a trying ordeal for Sally and her daughter who had passed through so many hardships together. Thus began the first year of life in that beautiful valley where she was destined to spend the remainder of her days.

Her husband cultivated a little farm and prospered about as the average in those pioneer days. By frugality and plain living they were able to manage their affairs. But the many hardships had begun to draw heavily on her vitality and she continued in frail health. With the help of the older girls, however, she was able to do her work and care for her family.

In 1868-69, while her husband was in the Legislature, she lived with her daughter, Julia, in Lehi. Here on the 16th day of April, 1869, her last child and only son was born. When he was six months old she returned to Pine Valley.

In those days, almost every household engaged in home manufacturing. In Sally's home there was a spinning wheel, a pair of cards, a swift or reel for making yarn into skeins and loom for making linsey and carpets. Three of the girls were large enough to help with this kind of work when the mother took the lead or directed it. The wool was washed, carded into rolls, spun into yarn, dyed and woven into cloth, after which the material was sewed by hand into clothing.

It seemed a great satisfaction to this good woman when her four oldest daughters were married in the Endowment House. To make the trip, in a covered wagon, to Salt Lake City for this ceremony required the crossing of the State. That took far more time then than it would take to cross a continent now.

The sudden death of William Snow-after a sickness of only twelve days-was a terrible shock to his family. His wife's physical condition was such that she was unable to attend the funeral.

Sally was now left to rear William her small son and her two daughters Metta, age fifteen and Lucy age seventeen. They were, indeed, a great comfort and blessing to her. When the two girls were married the mother and son kept the home. She now enjoyed that rich reward of peace and contentment that comes to those whose major purposes of life have been achieved. At the age of thirty, William was married to Hattie Thornton in the St. George Temple, where Lucy and Mettie had previously been married.

Shortly after his marriage he went to New York to fulfill a mission and his wife joined him there later. At this time the mother made her home with her daughter Emma who lived across the street from the old home.

William wrote very often and the two remained close in thought and spirit, despite the geographic distance. She took great delight in the missionary letters. The daughters living in the same town dropped in to visit the Mother once each day. As each called Sister Snow would request her to read William's letter. "It doesn't matter how often I hear these good letters," she said.

When William returned home from his mission he lived in the old home and his mother lived to see his first-born child.

On November 17, 1902, an earth-quake occurred in Pine Valley. It shook down the bricks from the chimney into Sister Snow's room frightening her terribly. William, who was teaching school dismissed his students and came at once to his mother and stayed with her until the next morning. They talked of bygone happenings and those rich experiences that calm the mind. Many of these were connected with the Gospel; some of them incidents of healing by the power of the priesthood and the sustaining confidence of this power during the years of her delicate health.

Those in delicate health are ofttimes very considerate of others. While Sally was confined to her home most of the time in Pine Valley, she always remembered the sick and those in need. Since Brother Snow was the Bishop in the town she knew who they were and sent them such delicacies as butter crackers or clothing she could knit or weave that they might need. While knitting or spinning by the cheerful pine fire she taught her children the Gospel and to respect the Priesthood. Sometimes she told them of those rich experiences along the journey of life.

There is, perhaps, no greater treasure that could be passed on to her descendants than a record of her experiences, the audible voice of that epoch in history, so rich in kindness and in faith.

During her last sickness from Christmas to February 13, 1905, her four younger daughters were constantly with her. William obtained a leave of absence from his teaching position at the Brigham Young University and was with her a part of the time. The oldest daughter was in Mexico and the second one in Canada. Their letters were a solace to the end.

One evening shortly before death, this noble little woman said, "Are you all here?" When Emma answered "Yes," she said, "I want to bear my testimony to the truthfulness of the Gospel. I know the Gospel is true, and I hope there will never be one of my posterity who will doubt it. I once had the Gift of Tongues and I never abused that Gift." After these words she rested a brief interval, then said, "Cultivate patience and you will all be happier," A few nights later she passed peacefully away. She was buried beside her husband in Pine Valley cemetery, February 15, 1905.