Joanna Matilda Despain

The above photo is from Family Search.org. There is another photo under the Media Tab above which depicts Joanna Matilda Erickson Westover and her children. Her daughter Laura Matilda Westover is behind her mother with her hand on the chair in which her mother is sitting. The boy on the right is John Lycurgus Westover, and the boy on the left is Edwin Swen Westover. The girls are (center left) Mary Sophia Westover, and in front of her, Electa Drucilla Westover, and sitting in her mother's lap is Emma Westover Beckstead, and the girl on the right in front is Amelia Christena Westover.

Joanna married Edwin Lycurgus Westover April 27, 1874, and they had two children, Laura Matilda, born in 1875 and Edwin Swen Westover born in 1877. Edwin died November 6, 1877, but before he died, Edwin asked his friend, Henry Despain, to marry Joanna and raise a large family in his Westover name. Joanna married Henry Waters Despain April 24, 1879. John Lycurgus Westover was the first of seven children of Henry Waters Despain and Joanna Matilda Erickson Westover. Joanne never used the name Despain however.

SOURCE: Find A Grave.com

The following History of Joanna Matilda Erickson Despain is from Family Search.org.

Joanna Matilda Erickson was born in Sweden, June 4, 1854. Her father was Swen Erickson of Goteborg, Alvsborg, Sweden, and her mother was Maria Kristina Bengtson of Boras, Sweden. For generations, her ancestors had lived in the land of the Midnight-Sun, and belonged to the Lutheran church. Her father was a cabinet-maker.

During the long winter nights, Joanna would hold a torch while he worked at his bench. The sun would come up about nine o’clock in the morning and set about three in the afternoon. Many years later, Joanna would tell her grandchildren about the long nights and the Milky Way in the sky, which they called the “Winter Street.”

It was the custom for the women to milk the cows. Joanna had memories of the snow being so deep that, as her mother went down the trail where her father had cleared the snow, they could hardly see her head. Another memory was that her mother would bake bread only twice a year, making large round loaves with holes in the middle. They would thread the bread on strings and hang it in the attic. There was no dust there to collect on food. They had to break the bread with a hatchet because it was so hard, but they considered it good for their teeth.

They lived near a lake and fished a great deal. Fish was their main food, and one year there was a famine, and they ate nothing else but fish. Sweden was a beautiful land. In the summer things were green everywhere. The soiled clothes were taken down to the lake, where her mother would pound them clean on the white rocks. They had no soap, nor detergent.

Joanna didn't go to school in Sweden, but her mother taught her to read. There was a penny placed in the book several pages ahead of where she was reading, and when she reached that page, she could keep the coin. Joanna was the eldest of seven children, a small dark-haired girl with blue-gray eyes. She was born in a little town near Goteborg, Sweden; but her sisters and brothers, Annie Dorothy, John Augusta, Emma, and Erik were all born in Hemsjo, Sweden. Her sister Emma died when she was a little more than a year old, and Erik died when he was about two months old.

Father took baby Erik to the minister who lived some distance from their home to be baptized, or sprinkled. The baby died of pneumonia resulting from the exposure. The couple readily listened to the Mormon missionaries who taught that babies need no baptism as they are without sin.

Swen was baptized 29 May and Maria 9th July 1863 into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. The spring of 1864, they decided to go to America to join the body of the church. Her father intended to go later, after disposing of their property. Swen put clothes and other things they need for their journey on a sled, and as he was a good skater he pulled the family and luggage across lakes to the place of embarking, A neighbor, a Mr. Elison, inquiring about their departure, and learning that Swen was not going with his family, said he would loan him the money and would sell his property for him, to get his money back.

Swen hurriedly skated back to his home to get more belongings he would need for the trip and returned just before the planks of the ship were lifted. Of course, the family was pleased to have him go with them. They sailed through the North Sea from Sweden to Liverpool, England, where on 28 Apr 1864 they sailed on the Monarch of the Sea for America. A small baby took sick and died while they were en route, and it was an awful experience for the children to see the baby lowered on a plank into the ocean, to be taken by the sharks.

There were 974 souls in the company of Saints under the leadership of John Smith. They docked in New York Harbor, after being six or seven weeks crossing the ocean. Her father had his coat stolen and had to finish the trip without a coat. Their journey to the West took three or four months. They traveled westward with Capt. Isaac A. Canfield. Joanna was only ten years old, Annie was seven and John was just past four years. They walked all the way, with Joanna and Annie taking turns carrying their little brother much of the way. Joanna had only one dress and wore the sleeves out of it. She was also bareheaded and barefooted when she arrived in the Valley. She became so tanned some people called her an Indian. She said she got so tanned that it just burned in and never came off. She was afraid of the Indians who came to see the Mormon train, but they were never harmed by them.

At times when the wagon stopped for the evening the two girls would gather buffalo chips to make a fire to cook the evening meal. Joanna’s mother had one leg shorter than the other. When she was a child, she fell and broke her hip, and needed to wear a built-up sole on her shoe. She walked across the plains, and being a cripple, she would sometimes become exhausted and have to be carried into camp.

Finally the long journey ended at Salt Lake City, 5 Oct 1864, but they decided to go on to Grantsville, forty miles further west, as they had friends there. The first winter they experienced many hardships. As their arrival was in the fall, they had no chance to prepare for the winter. Food and warm clothing were scarce. The people there were kind and they helped however they could. They lived in a little one-room lean-to with dirt floors that winter. By spring, a small jar of flour was all the food they had left. Joanna and Annie were sent out by their mother to gather buds from the sagebrush, which she cooked and thickened sparingly with the precious flour. Swen found carpentry work and by late spring was able to build the family a home. Two more children, Emma Maria and Albert Swante were born to the family in Grantsville.

The children had little chance to acquire an education; Joanna and Annie took turns wearing the one pair of shoes they owned, and also shared their one book. Joshua Clark, father of Pres. J. Rueben Clark, was their teacher. Joanna knit socks to pay him for teaching her. Though she had a meager education, Bro. Clark said she improved so much in writing she would soon beat him in it. She has been heard to say many times that the children at school would ridicule her because she could not speak the English language. It made her sad but determined to learn the new language.

It was necessary for the children to help support the family. The girls hired out to families to do washing and general housework. For a long time they worked for 50 cents a week and would have to pay 50 cents a yard for calico. She had a chance to work for milk too, but had to walk two miles to get it. It was "blinky" sometimes, so it had to clabber before it could be used.

She was taught very early to do all kinds of housework and sewing. She was very handy at sewing, and could make all kinds of patterns just thinking about them at night. She was taught to make hair switches, straw hats, and buckskin gloves and fox pants. She would take a pair of overalls and put a seat of buckskin on them and down the front of each leg. She was a good manager and would earn money by doing some of these things for others.

Some years after the family arrived in Utah Joanna’s father went back to Sweden on a mission for the church. And still later, he was called with John McLaws from Tooele, a town nearby, by President Brigham Young, to go work as carpenters on the St. George Temple.

Joanna had a beautiful soprano voice and was a member of the ward choir. Her brother John said she was the "sweetest singer" in Grantsville. One night the choir gave a concert. Joanna sang a song entitled "Only a little flower and she wore it in her hair." Edwin Lycurgus Westover was there and fell in love with her. He took her home that night and kept coming to their home. From then on she would sit mending or knitting stockings or socks while he visited with her father, so she has said he courted her father instead of her.

Sven had borrowed from the Church Emigration Fund to get to Utah and this young man, so in love with Joanna, helped to pay it off to get his girl. They were married 27 April 1874, in the Endowment House in Salt Lake City, They lived in her father's carpenter shop for a while. Some of the time “Kurg," as she called him, worked for an old man Seva, and Joanna had to bake both yeast and salt-rising bread to suit both men. Their first child, Laura Matilda, was born in Grantsville February 9, 1875.

Lycurgus had been born April 2, 1845, in Champaign County, Ohio, where his mother Sarah Sophia Darrow died soon after he was born. His father, Edwin Ruthwin Westover, married again in Ohio. They, along with his mother and his brother Charles, joined the L.D.S. Church and moved to Nauvoo, Illinois, and then continue the journey to Utah. He lived for a time in Cottonwood, Grantsville and Hamblin, near St. George, Utah. He was called with his wife and children to help colonize Taylor, Ariz., but died on the way there. Lycurgus was living with his father when he went to Grantsville to take care of the farm of a man while he went on a mission for the church.

President Brigham Young came to Grantsville to choose couples to help settle Arizona, on the Little Colorado River. In October of the year before, President Young had sent a scouting party to explore the valleys of that river, and it returned in January of 1876, giving a favorable report of abundant timber and open country suitable for farming, with a good water supply. President Young had already sent colonies to various points in Utah, Idaho, and now Arizona. Once again the saints were called on to leave their comfortable homes and pioneer elsewhere. Young families were wanted and Joanna felt impressed that they would be among the number to go to Arizona. They prepared to leave on their second pioneering trip. They left Salt Lake City on the day Laura was one year old, February 9, 1876.

About this time, there were four companies sent with approximately fifty in each company. William C. Allen was the leader of the group the Westover's were to join. These pioneers took their journey southward through Utah to Kanab. From there they followed trails over the Buckskin or Kaibab Mountains and made their descent into House Rock Valley. They crossed the river at Lee's Ferry, took the fearsome journey down Lee's Backbone, and proceeded in a southeasterly direction towards the upper valleys of the Little Colorado River. Much of the road was made as they traveled. Sometimes the mud would be up to the hub of their wagon, but many times water was hard to find for them and their animals. Sometimes they traveled into the night to find water. At morning milk would be put in a wooden bucket with a lid on it, and by night it would be shaken into butter.

On 24 March 1876, the group reached a point just east of the present town of Joseph City. Captain Allen decided to remain in this vicinity. The other companies chose areas across and down west on the river. The Westover's arrived 13 Apr 1876 about three weeks after the first group, traveling with the John McLaws family from Tooele.

The Westover's went quite well prepared. Lycurgus took 2 wagons, with 2 span of horses on the lead wagon. They took other horses, cows, sheep, chickens, farm implements, kitchen utensils, dishes and other household furnishings. Tools for carpentry, blacksmith and shoe making tools, seeds and a clock were among their supplies. The clock quit striking and stopped, the night that Lycurgus died, less than three years later.

Each company was instructed to establish a community under the United Order. Joanna and Lycurgus turned everything into the Order. The horses, sheep, cattle and all went into the "pool". Then she missed the milk and butter they had been used to, as now having just one child, they were allowed just a pint a day. They lived in a wagon-box until the fort was built.

Captain Allen's group became known as Allen's City, or Allen's Camp, and consisted at first of 45 men, 13 women, 4 boys, and 11 children. The alkali covered basin seemed harsh and uninviting to these new arrivals, with the brown grass and low bushes of that time of the year. The elements were unfriendly, the southwest winds of spring often blew dust and sand for days at a time. On such a day, they arrived. The youthful couples no doubt had thoughts of their former conveniences, but these people had been chosen and called to build homes and conquer their wilderness. The people of Allen's Camp began to establish a settlement immediately. The next day after their arrival, plowing was begun and one man began to construct a building. They organized an irrigation company. Water had to be diverted onto the dry land. A dam site was located and logs prepared for building it, and wheat was sown. All this the first week they were there.

From March through August of that year, all the families of Allen City, ate together at the same table. It was fashioned from logs made from the Cottonwood trees, and protected by a bowery made from the trees. By August a stockade was built. It, too, was constructed from the same kind of trees, which were laid up with mud. In the center was the store house, from which everyone drew provisions from a common stock. Close by the water wagon held the water supply for everyone. Each family was provided with individual quarters and no longer ate at a common table. The meetinghouse was in the southeast corner where they went to prayer meeting each night. There they sang a hymn, had a prayer, and sometimes a few remarks by one of the brethren. Often after a hard day’s work, there was dancing in the yard of the fort to the music of John McLaws' fiddle. They were now beginning to feel contentment in this isolated home. The children would play in the center and, when old enough, could play at night. But they had to be in by nine o’clock. It was great especially on moonlit nights.

In August, twenty-three men returned to Utah to bring their families to the colony, but some refused to return, apparently feeling life on the Little Colorado too difficult. During the first year, food was not plentiful There were dried beans, wheat, baked squash and parched corn. Milk and eggs were scarce. Supplies were obtained from Richfield or Kanab, Utah. Later the pioneers found it easier to go east to Albuquerque, New Mexico. At the end of the first year at the settlement Joanna, and Lycurgus made a trip to southern Utah, where some of his people lived and where Joanna's father was working on the temple. Here at Hamblin, their son Edwin Sven was born 20 Jan 1877. When he was three week old, they started back to Arizona. They brought a lot of loose horses with them and when they tried to cross the big Colorado River at Pearsall’s Ferry, Lycurgus swam them across, but nearly got swept away with the stream. They traveled this trip with the families of John Hunt and Henry Tanner, and others.

Joanna’s father went from St. George with them to Arizona. While there he made a milk cupboard, a table, a bureau, and the "green box", which were so welcome in their pioneer home. Her father returned to Utah in a few weeks.

For the first two years of its existence, the town was without mail-service except for intermittent delivery. Mail was taken by horseback or stage from Santa Fe or Albuquerque, New Mexico, or Prescott, Arizona by way of Camp Verde Military Post. To the latter, mail carriers frequently traveled at night because of the possibility of attack by the Apaches, a more war-like tribe than their immediate neighbors the Navajos and Hopis. Joanna and Lycurgus were known to have used neighbors to carry letters to each other, when he would be away. One letter Joanna wrote to her husband, while he was gone to Richfield was delivered by a Bro. Gray, who was returning to Utah, after his wife died after childbirth. While her husband was gone to Richfield, they lived in the wagon-box, where the bedbugs got so bad, Lot Smith came and took her and her two babies to Sunset, where they stayed with his family for a week until the bedbugs cleared out. She didn't complain to her husband in the letter she wrote, for she told him of visiting to pass the time away.

In September 1878, the place was renamed St. Joseph in honor of the prophet Joseph Smith. William Allen was released as presiding Elder in charge of the camp. Joseph H. Richard became the first bishop of the St. Joseph Ward. They were part of the Little Colorado Stake, later known as the Snowflake Stake. The census of the colony, 1 January 1878, reported Allen as having 76 inhabitants.

Obed was abandoned this year, and although all three of the other colonies were larger than Allen, they all discontinued soon after this. A few people from Obed joined the Allen group, but by 1885 St. Joseph was the only remaining colony of the 4 established on the river in 1876.

Lycurgus was handicapped with asthma, which kept him from doing much of the heavier work of the camp. Besides going to Utah and New Mexico freighting for the Order, he herded the company cattle, and taught school. On one trip to Albuquerque, he caught a cold from which he never recovered. He hadn't been well for 13 years, and that fall, 2 November 1877, he died. He was the second person to be buried in the new cemetery. Joanna must have felt very alone, to have been left a widow so young, and so far away from her people. But good friends and neighbors, John and Sophia McLaws, gave her and her babies a home until the next spring she could find someone to accompany her to her family in Grantsville. She sold her wagon to a Mr. Butler for $110, who promised to pay her soon, but she never received anything for it. Sometimes people take advantage of a widow.

Sometime before Lycurgus died, he was with a close friend deer hunting south of town. At the campfire, Lycurgus, believing he did not have long to live, requested that his friend marry his wife, when he died, and raise a family for him. His friend, Henry De Spain agreed. After Joanna went to Utah to be with her folks, Henry wrote to her of the compact. Joanna worried and prayed about it, but did not feel she could agree until she had a dream of being in a large room with but one door. Henry De Spain was in the doorway, holding out his hand to show her the only way out. She felt impressed by this dream that she must marry him, not for love, nor for security for he already had a family to support, but to comply to her husband's request. She and Henry were married 27 May 1879, in Salt Lake City, Utah.

This unusual situation would seem strange to us, but she must have felt she should go back to Arizona and finish the mission she and Lycurgus had started there. Her faith in the Lord and his purposes must have been great to have caused her to be able to make such a decision. Although it would build our faith in God to know of her greatness, this would seem unnatural and strange if we were called to do something of similar magnitude today.

Henry DeSpain was a good man and deserves much credit for the lives of Joanna's children. He eventually had a large family, 13 children by his first wife, and couldn't provide for Joanna's family, but he gave them a good blood heritage. He came to Utah with his father, after they joined the church in Illinois, and later Henry was among the first group to reach Allen's Camp. He began the tannery for the colony. He later assisted in establishing Heber, a small settlement southwest of St. Joseph. He was called as an Indian missionary and served about four and a half years. Many of the Indians came to his home, for they knew he was their friend.

For security from the law, the children grew up under the name of Westover. On the ward records, in school, etc., they would be called by either name, but generally were called Westover and Joanna was often spoken of as "Widow Westover". The children respected him, but usually spoke of him as Brother DeSpain. Eventually the family was advised by church authorities to continue using the name of Westover, as they were all born in the covenant to their mother and her first husband, Lycurgus Westover.

There were seven children born of this union of Joanna and Henry:

• John Lycurgus was given the second name of Lycurgus, Joanna’s first husband, and was born October 4, 1880, in St. Joseph, Arizona.

• Mary Sophia was born about two years later, October 8, 1882, in Grantsville in her grandparents' home.

• Amelia Christina was born June 29, 1885.

• Electa Drucilla on Mary's birthday, October 8, 1887.

• Emma Octavia was born October 12, 1889.

• The two younger boys, Albert Oscar and Franz Henry were born October 9, 1893, and July 10, 1896. All but Mary were born in St Joseph.

Joanna continued to live at the fort until about 1889. The family moved around in the fort. When others moved out, they moved into their rooms. Sometimes they had to eat off the "green box" or trunk. When they moved from the fort, east of town, Henry made a two room house for her. It was adobe on the south side and back, and inch-lumber nailed together on the east and north. There was one large room and one bedroom. In the winter, they used the large room for kitchen and bedroom so they could keep warm because there was a little fireplace in this room. It was very cold in this house sometimes. Once when they got some potatoes from Heber, they froze in the house, but Joanna used them, thawing them out in water before cooking them.

The children didn't know what it was to sleep in a bed until they were about fourteen. They always slept on the floor and sometimes had bad earaches because it was so drafty. The food was kept north of the house. One evening they heard a sound out there and Joanna went to see what might be getting into their food. She didn't see anything but a little later, hearing noise again, she went out and found that a burglar had taken some milk and mixed it with some "graham' to get something nourishing. Joanna sent Eddie and John to the fort to get Henry. When he came, the man, who was getting some feed for his horse, ran down below the hill. Henry took the gun that he had left leaning against the shed and went to the house. While he was there, the man came back and got his horse. Later he was captured north of Winslow. He was wanted for bank robbery in Albuquerque.

This history was found in my mother and father’s (Caroline and Albert Oscar Westover's) records. I have edited it to read a little clearer. I know from oral histories that my Grandmother Joanna, whom I never met, was a faithful, strong mother: adored by all her children. My daddy told of not being allowed to go to church until he could sit reverently and of how much he desired to go to church. In my life time he never missed church even when he was sick.

Albert told of the days of his youth when at 4 years old his mother made him a new dress. It was beautiful! However, being a young man now, he didn’t want to wear a dress. He wanted trousers!! So, he left the house and went directly to the dirt hill not far from the house and proceeded to climb the hill and slide down it over and over and over until the back of the dress was in threads. He was in big trouble but he never had to wear a dress again.

His sisters would tease him all the time and lock him in the food cellar. But he always told me how much he loved his sisters and asked that I bring his sister Tina over to the house to see him the day he died. I have read love letters that he wrote his mother while he was away at school and in France during the Great War (World War I).

During this war he carried a pictures of his mother and his sweetheart Caroline in a leather dual frame close to his heart in the breast pocket of his uniform. My Grandmother Joanna has always been an inspiration even though she died of colon cancer before I was born. I proudly tell her story regularly to my children and grandchildren and friends at DUP (Daughters of the Utah Pioneers) meetings. This last paragraph added by Carole Westover Call, youngest daughter of Albert Oscar Westover. May 13, 2014.

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Joanna Matilda Erickson married Edwin Lycurgus Westover April 27, 1874. They had two children, Laura Matilda Westover in 1875 and Edwin Swen Westover in 1877. Edwin Lycurgus Westover died November 6, 1877, but before he died, Edwin asked his friend Henry Despain to marry Joanna and raise a large family in his Westover name. Joanna married Henry Waters Despain April 24, 1879. John Lycurgus Westover was the first of seven children of Henry Waters Despain and Joanna Matilda Erickson Westover, but Joanna never used the name Despain, although some of her children did use the name Despain and others used Westover instead.

SOURCE: Find A Grave.com