Elizabeth Howard

Biographical Summary:

"...Elizabeth Anderson (Howard) was born on July 12, 1823 in Carlow, Carlow, Ireland, the daughter of Robert Anderson and Lucretia Ward. On her maternal side, she was descended from Quakers. Her father was a poet of great note, having written “The Premier” address to the Right Honorable Sir Robert Peel, Bart (1844) and “Play-Ground” addressed to Her Majesty Queen Victoria.

The days of her youth were in her own words, “Glorious”. She had everything she needed as a child to make her happy – little books, dolls, paint boxes and other toys of every description. Part of every summer was spent at the seashore where she enjoyed the magnificent grandeur of the scenes she enjoyed. Her father often took his children and friends to visit old ruins of castles, abbeys and fortifications and told stories about the former inhabitants.

Elizabeth was educated in strictly moral and religious principles by her mother, and was never allowed to shirk from her prayers, night and morning. However, sensing that none of the religious sects offered what she sought – the teachings of Jesus and his apostles. She was, therefore, inclined to wait for the time to come that the old prophets write and prophesied about.

When she was eighteen year old, she married William Howard and went to reside in Belfast, Ireland. Her husband had been educated at Trinity College in Dublin for the ministry in the Methodist Church. However, he chose not to practice in the ministry, but instead joined his father in a large wire manufacturing plant. She attended Methodist meetings with her husband, but there was a want in her heart that was not satisfied.

Ten years later, her husband’s health became slightly impaired and his doctor recommended that he go to the seashore for a change of climate. He rented rooms from a Mr. and Mrs. Daniel M. Bell at Ballygrott, on the shores of the Belfast Long. The Bells were Mormons, and in due time, Elizabeth and William were converted. She was delighted with the teachings of the Church, and said in her autobiography: “I knew I had found what my reason, my heart and my soul had long looked for -- although my friends turned their backs on my, I had the satisfaction of knowing that indeed I had made God my friend”.

William had fully made up his mind to dispose of his business and property, preparatory to immigrating to America, and on the 27th of February, 1853, they left their comfortable home and all they had known. On the 2nd of March, 1853, they sailed from Liverpool on the steamship “City of Glasgow” with their six small children, the youngest being only six weeks old. In their company were the Bells, two servant girls, and two servant men, whose expenses were paid by William Howard. After three weeks on the ocean, they arrive din Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

When William and Elizabeth arrived in St. Louis, Missouri, William decided that they had entirely too much merchandise to bring across the plains so he set up a store and sold good until he had but four wagon loads left. He bought four wagons with three yokes of oxen on each, and a carriage drawn by three horses for his family to ride in. Elizabeth and the older children drove the carriage so that William could oversee the loaded wagons.

The Howard’s arrived in Salt Lake City on 25 Sept, 1853, lived for a time in Salt Lake City, then moved to Big Cottonwood where a very nice home was built. Three sons were born to William and Elizabeth after they arrived in Salt Lake City.

In 1868, William and Elizabeth were called and set apart to serve a mission in England, leaving their children in the care of Sister Hannah T. King, while Mr. King took care of the farm. Again the couple crossed the plains, this time with a U.S. Mail train, and on July 22 of that year, the boarded a steamer and arrived in Liverpool on August 4th. While in England, they had portraits painted which they brought home with them. These portraits now hang in the Daughters of the Pioneers Building in Salt Lake City. The Howard’s returned a year later. This time when they sailed for America, they brought with them, at William’s expense, Elizabeth’s two half-sisters, and two of Elizabeth’s cousins.

At the organization of the Relief Society in 1867, Elizabeth was appointed Secretary of the Big Cottonwood Ward, which office she filled until she accompanied her husband to England. She resumed the same office upon her return.

In about 1871, Elizabeth was chosen counselor to Mrs. M. I. Horne in the General Retrenchment Association. When the Relief Societies were organized into stakes, Elizabeth Howard was appointed Secretary of the Salt Lake Stake of Zion.

Elizabeth Howard was one of the foremost proponents and champions of equal suffrage of women in the affairs of education and government.

On August 1, 1882 the Deseret Hospital, under the direction of Sister Eliza R Snow, was organized. Elizabeth Howard served as a member of the Board of Director and treasurer of the hospital until her death in March of 1893. Shortly thereafter, the Deseret Hospital was closed, due to lack of operating funds.

Sister Howard traveled much throughout the territory in company with other Sisters, including Eliza R. Snow, visiting different societies and associations in a missionary capacity, giving instructions and infusing cheerfulness and energy by her whole-souled and genial manner. The history of the Emery Stake Relief Society stated: “Sister Howard, one of the General Board, visited the stake and went with the stake officers to organize Wilsonville, but that little place was later abandoned.”

It was while on a visit fro the general board of the Relief Society in Grantsville, Tooele, Utah, that Elizabeth died of a paralytic stroke on 12 March 1893. The account of her funeral service, held in the Assembly Hall on Temple Square, was reported in the Deseret Evening New on March 15, 1893.

The invocation was offered by J.D. McAlister. President Joseph F. Smith addressed the large congregation, speaking with glowing eloquence of the virtues of Sister Elizabeth Howard. Other speakers were: Sister M. Isabella Horne, Zina D.H. Young, Bathsheba W. Smith, S. Richards, D.B. Brinton, Auguz M. Cannon and George Halliday. Benediction was spoken by Elder Franklin C. Richards. Sister Howard was interred in the City Cemetery beside her husband and a daughter. Her grave was dedicated by Elder Joseph E. Taylor..."

SOURCE: Elizabeth Anderson Howard
Submitted to DUP by Vilate Allington Jensen, a great-granddaughter through Lockhart Anderson and Mary Crystal Howard, and Historian for the Howard Family Organization of Utah.

Elizabeth Anderson Howard’s Autobiography

"...I, Elizabeth Anderson, was born 12 July 1823, in Carlow, Carlow, Ireland. My father, Robert Anderson, born in Dublin, Dublin, Ireland, 1 October 1797, was a son of Lockhart and Elizabeth Webster Anderson. My mother, Lucretia Ward, was born near Eniscorthy, Wexford, Ireland, in 1798, and was the daughter of John and Mary Webster Ward.

On my maternal side I am descended from Quakers.
The new Garden Cemetery in Co Meath, Ireland, is a burying ground of many of my ancestors.

My father was a great reformer and poet. Among the poems he wrote was the “Premier” addressed to the Right Honorable Sir Robert Peel, Bar., written in 1844 at Carlow, Ireland. He was a great admirer of Sir Robert Peel’s “national Reform” and took quite an interest in politics on the Conservatives side, though not with bigotry, but full of the love and freedom of conscience in religion and politics, that all persons should be allowed to enjoy. He was a sound philosopher. He took a course in life of uprightness and kindness that won for him respect and esteem from rich and poor. His charity was unbounded. A poor person was never known to leave his door unaided. When offered interest for money he loaned, he would invariable refuse, saying, “Userers would not get to Heaven.” He lent money for the sake of obliging. He took great delight in making all who associated with him happy and give them enjoyment.

The days of my youth were glorious; I had every felicity given me to make me happy. Little books innumerable, toys, dolls, toys of every description, paint boxes, etc, etc, etc. Part of almost every summer was spent at the seashore, and I never shall forget the magnificent grandeur of the scenes I then enjoyed. I delighted in the rough, rocky shore. I was always pleased when we went to such a place. The smooth shaley and fine sand I cared very little fore. I loved the climbing, then the delight in the grand scenery to repay me for my labor of a perilous ascent of a precipitous rock, my mother, watching me many a time fearing I would destroy myself or lead my young sisters into the same danger.

My father also took great delight in taking us and his young friends to visit old ruins of Castles, Abbeys, and Fortifications and exploring every nook and corner of the towers containing the awful “Keep” or “Dungeon”, where state prisoners used to be guarded, and looking through the old port holes in the 6 or 8 feet thick walls. I recollect peopling in my imagination the grand drawing room, and fine old halls with the knights and dames of olden times in their chains and plate armor and rich old silk brocade dresses and wondering what became of the romantic and beautiful places of my Lovely Native Isle.

I was educated strictly moral and religious. I was never allowed to shirk from my prayers, night and morning. My mother generally read family prayers with her children in her own room. The servants being Roman Catholics, of course would not come, but when we had Protestants they always attended. I never remember my father being present at these readings. I never asked Why. I used to think he looked on this custom of my mothers as a little too religious. I only thought so. I never heard him hint anything of the kind, but I, many a time, heard him remark, when in conversations with members of different denominations he was acquainted with “that the religion Jesus taught would be restored again.” I looked on him as a model of perfection. I also considered him a Prophet, for I well recollect hearing him read for his friends, paragraphs out of what he called, “My Prophecy”. I don’t remember whether there was any religious subject in it or not; the portion I recollect was a political. He wrote it when very young. He would take it out of his “secretary” and read the part of it that was fulfilled by some “Act of Parliament” very much rejoiced at his predictions being accomplished.

He was never considered very religiously inclined, neither was I. I had sense enough to see for myself there was something wanted that none of the sects that I was acquainted with (and that was five or six) corresponded with the teachings of Jesus and His Apostles; therefore, I felt inclined to wait for the time my father used to speak of would come. Tho’ young when thinking of the “Hereafter,” I had the idea that something would transpire to bring to pass what so many of the old Prophets wrote and prophesied about. I recollect that our revered Minister, Rev. Warrand Carlisle, used to pray every Sunday for “the gathering of the Jews to Jerusalem.” I fully believed such a time would come. Mr. Carlisle and my Father had full faith in a literal Millennium, not a spiritual one, as many of the sectarian ministers of this present time try to persuade themselves and their valaries to believe in. I looked forward to all these things being literally fulfilled. I gave myself no trouble about them. I felt sure such a time would come. I am amused now when I look back to the time I went with my dear mother to the Methodist “watch Night.” Just before the old clock struck twelve, there was a profound silence, after that what crying and sobbing. I tried to cry too (lest they might think I was a hardened sinner) just to keep them company, but I certainly did not know what we all cried for.

When 18 years old I married a strict Methodist and went to reside in Belfast, the hotbed of Aranysim. I became a formal Methodist, observing all the laws, attending class meting, love fests, etc., etc, but there was a want in my heart I could not account for. I felt looking forward to something. I had still the feeling to “wait”.

Soon after my marriage, my husband joined and was elected Master of Orange Lodge for which I was very sorry. I hated “Parties” and the ill feeling they engendered in the minds of excitable men. I loved my birthday, but the fearful scenes and the terrible results it brought annually disgusted me, and I longed for a time when a change would come, when there would in very deed be “peace on earth” and none of this horrid destroying power talking on the land that was continually producing ruin and death – yet, I participated in their “fetes” and dinners (when ladies were allowed). I think it was the 12th of July, 1848, that my husband gave a dinner to the member of his “Lodge’, their wives, sisters, etc., etc., when about three hundred persons sat down to partake of the “fat of this land”. His next birthday his Lodge presented him with a very fine Bible – in June 1851, he embraced “Mormonism” and discovering that his religion and anything antagonist to “Peace and good will” did not agree, he sent in to his “lodge” his resignation, which they indignantly refused to accept, and had the pleasure and satisfaction of expelling him, saying, “They might as well have a Roman Catholic Priest for ‘Master’ as a ‘Mormon’. All this time I was living very sedately, not much excitement; considerable pleasure; two great grieves, the death of my ten-month old son, and my dearly beloved Father, fifteen days after.

I had good help in taking care of my family, which gave me time to read a good deal, a taste for which I was encouraged in by my husband, one of our Preachers, Rev. W. Vance and our family physician, Doctor T.K. Wheeler; they procuring for me (what I did not get for myself) the standard works of the day. We had of course our daily newspapers, many of the leading articles of which, and also of the “Family Hearld”, tended a good deal to prepare my mind to receive something better than anything I was acquainted with at that time. We had many eminent and talented D.D.’s visit Belfast, especially to preach charity sermons. One I recollect, preaching in “Frederick Chapel” was so well learned in College lore that when coming out of meeting, I overheard one person say to another, “Oh man! Oh man! Wasn’t that a fine discourse; I hardly understood a word of it.” I thought to myself, there were many fine long words used, and grand oratory, but there was actually nothing in it satisfactory to a longing soul.

I attended many prayer and Revival meetings, at one time. The latter were held several nights in succession. A beloved young friend of mine, on the third night, received the forgiveness of her sins, as she stated. She prayed and entreated for some feeling to be given her that she might know that she was accepted of God. She received it, she told me, “A sensation as if a burning came in her chest. It was so severe she almost fainted, but she was sure of her full acceptance by her Maker.” She was exceedingly anxious I should undergo the same ordeal, by going forward to the “Anxious Seat”, but I firmly declined. I never could be persuaded to go there.

After ten years had passed over, my husbands’ health became slightly impaired. He was ordered a change of air, to go to the sea side for a a short time, tho’ in the winter. He went and rented rooms from a Mr. and Mrs. Daniel M. Bell at Ballygrott, bordering on the elegant and picturesque demesne of “C. Candleboys”, the residence of Lord Dufferen on the shore of the Belfast Long.

The Bells were “Mormons”. Having read and heard so much derogatory to them in almost every publication of the period, I warned my husband to beware of them, they were a fearful bad people. I begged him to be on guard, not to listen to them, or pay any attention whatever to their conversation. While there I went to visit him, and of course had quite a desire to see a “Mormon”. I expected they should look unlike anything I had ever seen. “I went”, “I saw”, and in six months I was “conquered”. Mrs. Bell was an exceedingly kind, good lady. Mr. Bell appeared to me to be a most extraordinary character. He had a most peculiar method of expressing himself, and in general conversation, mixing passages and ideas from the Bible quite new to me. I would say to him (Sometimes as much for the sake of controversy as anything else) “That is in your Mormon Bible, not in mine.” He would answer, “Madam, it is in the King James Translation.” Before very long the warning I gave my husband proved futile in regards to myself. I received with pleasure the Doctrines and principles he offered me. He lent me a book called “The Voice of Warning”, such it proved to be to me. I took it, my Bible, and all the Commentaries I could procure; I compared them. The Mormon books said the Bible meant what it said in regards to laws and principles. The Commentators “supposed” that such a one translated so and so, to mean such and such, and another honestly confessed they did not know anything about it, only they would take what such a one said for granted. It all seemed so unsatisfactory to me, this twisting and turning of Bible truths, their own ideas and notions that I came to the conclusion I had found what I had “waited for”. I had lived to see the days that Revelation and principle, manners, and customs Jesus taught had been again restored. One principle, among many, I was much impressed with was “Baptism for the Dead”. St. Paul touches on this in one of his letters. I was delighted with it. I was satisfied. I knew I had found what my reason, my heart, and my soul had long looked for.

The sprinkling of infants was another subject I had often thought about. I did not pay much attention to it. Some of my own ten children were never christened until old enough to be dressed up very nicely and then gave an invitation to a large company to witness the imposing ceremony. How much more preferable this religion of Mr. Bell’s, that required babies to be “blessed” at eight days old, and be given the name they would be known by forever, and then when eight years old to be baptized and become members of the Church. After that they were responsible for their sins, not before. There was something reasonable and consistent in that doctrine that I received it with joy. I also accepted the doctrine of a personal God. The one great preposterous “Nothing” the church of England presents to its votaries as a thing to be worshiped, I could not comprehend. I never tried. But they declared “it” to be “incomprehensible”, I forgot that. But the True and Living God is the Maker of Heaven and Earth, the Father of my immortal spirit. I gloried in such a Personage and also in His Only Begotten Son, my Savior.

Principles like these I was quite prepared to receive and could readily comprehend them. I also knew that only through the Power of God could they be known to man, and the more I investigated the principles taught by the Latter Day Saints, the more I was satisfied that what I had long been looking for had indeed come, and in the month of August, 1851, I was baptized by Mr. Bell,, and from that time commenced living a new life, realizing as I did that my sins were forgiven through obedience to the requirements of the Gospel. I felt I had a sure foundation on which to build my hopes of gaining Eternal Life and felt willing to forget everything of a worldly nature to attain it. I felt assured I had found the Truth, and I was desirous my friends and relatives should also come to a knowledge of it. For this purpose, I took every opportunity of presenting to them the principles I had embraced by my books and by correspondence, but failed to make any impression upon them, they were so wrapped up in the Theories and Traditions of their forefathers to accept or even investigate the glorious truths which had been once more revealed to mankind, but this did not influence me from following on in the path I had commenced to travel. I felt the assurance day by day that God, my Heavenly Father, had accepted of my obedience and I was quite satisfied that all would work together for good and though my friends turned their backs upon me, I had the satisfaction of knowing that indeed I had made God, my friend.

There was one principle associated with the Gospel which gave me sincere sorrow, and that was the gathering of the Latter Day Saints to America. For two days I was much troubled at the idea of leaving my beloved Native Land, the homes and graves of my fathers, my large circle of relatives and friends, and all that seemed near and dear was a great trial to me, but after that time, through earnest prayer, I received the Testimony for myself that it was commanded by God. I received it as such, and felt perfectly resigned to endure the annoyances and privations incident to such a long journey; therefore, I commenced making preparations for leaving my home.

During this time my husband fully made up his mind to dispose of his business and property, preparatory to emigrating, and on the 27th of February, 1853, we left our comfortable home and beloved friends for Liverpool and on the 2nd of March, 1853, we sailed from there on the Steamship “City of Glascow,” in company with our friends, Mr. and Mrs. Bell, my six children (the youngest 6 weeks old), two servant girls, and two servant men. We encountered hard winds nearly the whole voyage..."

• Updated from Find A Grave Memorial via daughter Katherine Alice Brockbank (born Howard) by SmartCopy: Apr 4 2015, 16:42:45 UTC