Elvira Van Curen

Mormon Pioneer Overland Travel, 1847–1868

Rockwood, Elvira Teeples

Birth Date: 1 Nov. 1819 Death Date: 2 Dec. 1886 Gender: Female Age: 30 Company: Silas Richards Company (1849)

SOURCE: http://lds.org/churchhistory/library/pioneerdetails/1,15791,4018-1-...

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HISTORY OF ELVIRA TEEPLES WHEELER
Sent in by Mrs. O. K. Lowe, Franklin, Idaho

If "services is the true measure of greatness", then the life of Elvira Teeples Wheeler was surely a mark of greatness, for practically her entire life was spent in service of others.

In LaHarpe, New York, on November 11, 1810, a daughter was born to Jacob and Rhoda  Bentley Teeples whom they named Elvira. 

Some of the family joined the Church very soon soon after it was organized. Rhoda died before the church was organized and Jacob Teeples four years after. George B. and Elvira were with the Saints through the early persecutions in Missouri and withstood the early hardships and mobbings. They were driven from place to place and had their home burned three times in three different places. In the Haun's Mill Massacre, Hortense Stocker, who was Elexander (Elec) Stock's first wife who saved Elvira from the mob by rolling her over a brush fence.

They went to Nauvoo with the Saints and were well acquainted with Joseph and Hyrum Smith. One time during a meeing, Joseph Smith told the Saints that his days were short, and also what kind of man would take his place. This man was to be a seer and was described as Brigham Young. They were at the last meeting where Joseph, the Prophet, spoke to the Saints, and were also present in the troublesome times before Joseph and Hyrum went to Carthiage Jail. They saw the bodies when they were brought home from the jail for burial.

On January 2, 1836, Elvira married Henry A. Wheeler in Pontiac, Oakland County, Michigan. They had four children, two boys and two girls. The older of the boys was called Am (Ammon) Henry and died sometime before the Saints left for their westward trek, but the date of death is not known.

Elvira's brother helped build the Nauvoo Temple and it was here that he received his endowments. She also received her endowments in the Nauvoo Temple on January 9, 1846 and officiated in the Nauvoo Temple February 3, 1846. The records show endowments were given for Henry Wheeler on the latter date. (Copied out of Journal History under the date of September 11, 1846).

Later, sometime before 1846, she married Albert Perry Rockwood and they had one child by 1846. At Curlers Park, Nauvoo, President Young held council and directed a number of Saints to prepare for the journey west. Her husband, Mr. Rockwood, was among them. He came to Utah with the first company that arrived July 24, 1847. Later, he returned and brought Elvira and the five children back to Utah with him. Shortly after they arrrived , another child was born to them. This made a boy and a girl from their marriage before their separation.

About 1850, she married Paul Van Curen at Mill Creek. Afterwards they moved to Weber County. They had four girls, Ellen Morgan and Elvira Marshall, who were twins, Pauline Uehren and Comfort Hope Kinney. Her third husband deserted her and wanted to come back to her. She would not let him in at all, and from then on he denied his youngest child. This made all the family very bitter towards him. He finally married a Miss Benson, and they also raised a family. They went to California in search of gold and there lived until his death.

After he remarried, Elvira and her ten children were among the first of the Saints to come to Franklin when it was settled in 1860. She lived at the Fort in Franklin, as did the other settlers for their protection--for a number of years. Then she moved to the corner where Peter Bowcutt's old home is now. Later she moved to where the old Morgan home now stands.

Elvira was blessed by Joseph Smith to be a midwife and work among the sick. She worked constantly in this capacity until her death. She doctored Mrs. Mary Hull's daughter, Seila, for rhematism. Her charge for confinement cases was two dollars. She would travel as far as Oxford and Market Lake. She went to Market Lake and took care of Vinnie Marshall Adams, a sister to George T. Marshall. She would travel to these cases by horse and buggy or if she had no other way, she would go on foot. Often while she lived at Franklin she would walk as far as Richmond or Whitney in order to care for the sick. Though she was a widow with ten children, she was liberal with her talents. The meager salary that she received had to care for the family.

The oldest son, Am Wheeler, married Mary Frew as his second wife. They had two boys and later owned a farm in Mapleton.

ANOTHER HISTORY OF ELVIRA TEEPLES BY MRS. J. W. TELFORD, IDAHO FALLS

 Elvira Teeples was born in Rochester, New York in 1819, a daughter of Jacob and Rhoda Bentley Teeples. She was married at 18 to Henry Wheeler. She had four children, Ammon and John were her sons, Sarah and Emma were her daughters. Henry A. Wheeler was a tailor by trade. He was killed while working on the Nauvoo Temple. After his death, she married Albert Perry Rockwood, who brought her and her family to Salt Lake.

Before leaving Nauvoo Grandma made a number of cheeses and had them on the way. One day Grandpa Rockwood told her he wanted her to give Aunt Angeline Horn, another wife of Grandpa's, a cheese. She didn't want to do this, so when Grandpa came for the cheese she had thrown it out on the ground. She felt if Aunt Angeline wanted cheese she should have made some the same as she did.

She had two children by Grandpa Rockwood, Mary Ann, who married Charley Card, and lived at Enterprise, Morgan County, Utah and Charles Welcome Deseret. Mary Ann died at the age of thirty giving birth to twins. She was buried in Salt Lake.

Charles Welcome Rockwood was born in a wagon box in Salt Lake in 1850, on March 2nd. Before he was born they had separated. She sent for a woman who had a child out of wedlock and told her to give her the baby and she'd get a name for it. So she took C. W. And left her baby. Grandpa came to see his first son and was so pleased over it that he blessed and gave it a name, the name this child always kept.

Grandmother and her children went through the famine of 1856-57. They lived three weeks on brown bread and after it was gone, and without bread, meal or milk, they had to sustain life from what they could gather from the fields such as roots, thistles and pigweeds.

She was married four years later to Paul Van Curen, who came to Utah about the time of Johnston's Army. Her children were Elvira and Ellen, twins born in 1855; Pauline, born in 1857; Comfort Hope born June 9, 1959. Before the last child was born her husband deserted her and went to California seeking gold. She made her living nursing and acting as midwife to the town of Franklin. One man told me that when he was a boy he took her in a wagon down on Bear River to see a family sick with diphtheria, the only help they had at the time. The night was never too dark nor distance too far if she felt she could help somone in need.

She died at the home of her daughter Pauline, at Riverview, Lost River, on December 6, 1886 and was buried at Franklin.

Elvira had several husbands 1) Henry A. Wheeler January 2nd 1836 2) Albert Perry Rockwood, January 21st 1846 3) Paul Van Curen,1855

• Reference: Find A Grave Memorial - SmartCopy: Nov 10 2016, 19:39:02 UTC