Lydia Clementine West Freeman

Lydia Clementine West was born April 21, 1840, in Wadsbaron, Calloway County, Kentucky, to Samuel Walker West and Margaret Cooper West. Their family had converted to the Mormon religion about 1834 while living in Dickson County, Tennessee, where both her parents were born. For a while they lived in Kentucky at the home of Samuel's widowed mother, but then the family went to join the LDS Saints in Nauvoo, Illinois, where they later migrated to Utah and finally Arizona.

According to a note on the website Family Search.org, Lydia was to marry Jacob Gates in Salt Lake but could not bear to be away from her family. Family Search gives the date of the marriage between Lydia West and Jacob Gates as 13 Jul 1856 (when Lydia was 16) in Salt Lake City. Jacob Gates was born in 1811, so he was 29 years older than Lydia. He practiced plural marriage; he married his first wife, Mary Minerva "Millie" Snow, in 1833.

Lydia returned to Parowan and later married Columbus Reed Freeman July 27, 1862. He was born June 7, 1838, in Jackson County, Missouri. His parents were Nancy Beal Smoot and John Freeman. Columbus and Lydia moved to Snowflake, Arizona, with Lydia's older brother, John Anderson West and other members of the family, including her younger sister, Nancy Malinda (West) Rollins and her husband, John Henry Rollins, Jr. After the death of Lydia's mother, Margaret Cooper West, the Freeman and Rollins families moved to the Gila River Country in Safford, Arizona, probably about 1884, according to the book "Our Heritage As It Glows From The West," page 14, 46-51.

Lydia and Columbus had eight children: Malcolm Samuel, born June 8, 1863, John Levi, March 27, 1865, Lydia Clementine, February 27, 1867, Emma Eliza, February 1, 1869, Columbus Reed, Jr., July 8, 1872, Margaret Beele, October 1, 1875, William Moroni, Feburary 13, 1876, and Orlilla Marticia, June 6, 1877.

In 1880, Lydia, Columbus and family were living in Kanosh, Millard County, Utah, but they left later that year and relocated to Graham County, Arizona, along with many other members of the LDS church and her own family, including two of her sisters, Emma Seraphine, who had married Jesse Nathaniel Smith, one of the church leaders, and Lydia's younger sister, Nancy Malinda West Rollins, the wife of John Henry Rollins, a son of an early Mormon Pioneer family.

Lydia's husband Columbus died April 25, 1907, and Lydia died January 24, 1912, while visiting her family in San Diego, California. Following is an obituary for her found on Ancestry.com:

Death of Mrs. Freeman - Succumbs to Attack of Pneumonia in San Diego, California: The body of the late Lydia C. Freeman arrived in Safford Saturday afternoon from San Diego, California, where death followed an attack of pneumonia. Mrs. Freeman was taken ill in Los Angeles, where she spent several months last summer, and from there went to San Diego to visit her daughter, Mrs. W. J. Starks, and her son, C.R. (Tump) Freeman. Here her illness was such that she was taken to the St. Joseph Hospital, where death took place January 24th.

Deceased was a native of Kentucky and moved with her family in 1861 to southern Utah, where she was married to Columbus Reed Freeman. Leaving Utah in 1880, Mr. and Mrs. Freeman and children journeyed through Arizona stopping here and there for months at a time until they finally settled in the Gila valley, where thrift made them prosperous. Columbus Reed Freeman was gathered to his fathers in April, 1907.

The surviving children, all of whom were present at the funeral, are Malcolm Samuel and John Levi Freeman, Mrs. H.J. Dowdle (Lydia Clementine Freeman Dowdle), Columbus Reed Freeman, Jr. (Tump), and William Freeman, and Mrs. W.J. Starks (Orilla Marticia Freeman Starks). She also leaves a sister, Mrs. Nancy Malinda West Rollins of Layton. The funeral took place from the old home Sunday afternoon, Rev. P.D. Garden officiating. Interment was made in the Union Cemetery in Safford, Arizona.

SOURCE: Ancestry.com