Charlotte Call

Charlotte Holbrook Call (1833 - 1866)

   Charlotte Holbrook was born November 26, 1833 at Weathersfield, Wyoming County, New York.  Her parents, Joseph and Nancy Lampson Holbrook, were baptized into the Mormon Church the same year she was born.  The family moved with the Saints as they were driven first to Kirtland, then to Missouri and then to Nauvoo, Illinois. 

When Charlotte was eight years old, on 16 July 1842 her mother died in Nauvoo, leaving four motherless children. Nancy was buried in Mormon Cemetery there, now Sonora Twp. Her father married Hannah Flint on 1 Jan. 1843, who was a school teacher in Nauvoo, and they raised Charlotte and two of her siblings to maturity. Hannah was the sister of Mary Flint who had married Anson Call.
The Holbrook and Call families started traveling west from Nauvoo with 72 wagons in 1846 reaching the Elkhorn river where it intersects the Platte river. Here they were intercepted by an express rider and told to return for that year as the rest of the Saints were not ready to go west. Returning to the Missouri river they built 150 cabins and spent the winter of 1846/1847 near what's now Niobrara Nebraska. The Mormons accepted the Ponca Indian's invitation to winter with them in their camp on the "Running Water," or Niobrara River, near its entry into the Missouri River. On returning to Winter Quarters on the Missouri in the spring of 1847 they were told that what was needed was for bills to be paid, stragglers gathered in and money and supplies to be gathered for future settlement in the west. Working the summer and winter of 1847 in Pottawattamie Co. Iowa, crops were put in and supplies accumulated. Finally in 1848 the Calls and Holbrooks started west again in May 1848 with their ox teams and 18 months worth of supplies. They traveled (most walked, many barefooted) the 1000 miles with the Saints in the Brigham Young Wagon Company and arrived at the Salt Lake Valley on September 21, 1848, and soon after settled in Bountiful (then known as Sessions Settlement or North Kanyon).
Charlotte while helping her parents raise the younger children and doing chores; walked across the prairie at 14 and went to school with Anson Vasco Call also 14. The early schooling was done by Hanna Flint Holbrook. Charlotte and Anson Vasco were married on January 28, 1853, in Bountiful Utah by Charlotte's father, Joseph Holbrook. The young couple made their first home in Willow Creek, Box Elder County, Utah (now known as Willard, Utah). Charlotte's father Joseph Holbrook had staked out two hundred acres in July 1851 in this community. When he arrived, there was only one cabin belonging to Samuel Meachem. Joseph sold sixty acres to Anson Vasco and Charlotte.
It was at Willow Creek that their first two children were born, Charlotte Vienne Call on November 7, 1853, and Anson Vasco Call II on May 23, 1855. They then moved back to Bountiful where Anson Vasco could get work teaching as well as run a farm and here Charlotte gave birth to five more children.

   Charlotte and Anson were the parents of:

Charlotte Vienna Call, born November 7, 1853, Willard, Box Elder, Utah

Anson Vasco Call, Jr., born May 23, 1855, Willard, Box Elder, Utah

Joseph Holbrook Call, born February 23 1857, Bountiful, Davis, Utah

Mary Vashtia Call, born January 29, 1859, Bountiful, Davis, Utah

Ira Call, born March 23, 1861, Bountiful, Davis, Utah

Hannah Call, born January 26, 1863, Bountiful, Davis, Utah

Lamoni Call, born January 25, 1865, Bountiful, Davis, Utah

   While Anson Vasco was married to Charlotte, he was called on two missions. The first mission was to the Sandwich Islands (now called Hawaii)  in 1857. This mission was aborted as all missionaries were recalled for the Utah “War” of 1857. Anson Vasco left Charlote alone as he was sent on scouting  missions in the winter of 1857/1858. Then in 1864 he was called to England on a mission. While Anson Vasco was away Charlotte worked hard in the necessary tasks of spinning, weaving, knitting and sewing clothing cleaning, cooking, etc. for her family of seven children. She did beautiful needlework. Somehow with the support of her extended family of Calls and Holbrooks  and hard work she managed to support her and her family, keep themselves warm in the winter, provide food, clothing and shoes for all her children and send her children to school. Working, cleaning, mending, trying to raise enough crops and do enough extra to have a little money they somehow managed to survive. In a November 12, 1864 letter to Anson Vasco while he was in England she wrote: “You must excuse my writing for I am much more used to turning the spinning wheel than writing. We have made about 70 yards of cloth and have 30 more to weave.” 

Charlotte's last child was born eight months after her husband left on his second mission. She was still recovering her strength when she caught typhoid fever and passed away on July 9, 1866. Charlotte's husband died less than a year later on the Laramie Plains, Wyoming, and their little children, now orphans were scattered among the various relatives to be cared for.
On November 10, 1856, Anson V. took a second wife, Eliza Kathrine Kent b. 29 Feb 1836 in Suffield, Portage, Ohio at the Endowment House, Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah.

Eliza and Anson’s children were

Chester Vinson CALL b. 6 Oct 1859 in Bountiful, Davis, Utah; d. 16 Jan 1943 Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah.

Sidney Banagor CALL b. 27 Dec 1861 Bountiful, Davis, Utah; d. 21 Sep 1906 Chesterfield, Carbon, Idaho

Ida CALL B. 26 Feb 1863 in Bountiful, Davis, Utah; d. 28 Nov 1934 Evanston, Uinta, Wyo

What Eliza and Charlotte’s living arrangements were is unknown; but they probably lived in separate homes as was common for multiple families with a common husband. Eliza married Samuel Augustine Walton on 4 Jul 1869 in Bountiful, Davis, Utah and raised another family of six children.

Sources: Pioneer Women of Faith and Fortitude, Volume I, an International Society Daughters of Utah Pioneers publication. 1998.

Colonist Father’s Corporate Sons, a Select History of the Call Family, By Howard M. Carlisle,

“The Life and Record of Anson Call; his personal Journal”

“The Life of Joseph Holbrook” an autobiography

Obituary from 19 July 1866 Issue of Deseret News Weekly Newspaper.

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