Recollections of Past Days: The Autobiography of Patience Loader Rozsa Archer (Life Writings Frontier Women)

280 Pages·2006·2.85 MB·English

by  Sandra Ailey Petree

Recollections of Past Days
The Autobiography of
PATIENCE
LOADER
ROZSA
ARCHER
(cid:1)
Edited by Sandra Ailey Petree
Recollections of Past Days
The Autobiography of
Patience Loader Rozsa Archer
Volume 8
Life Writings of Frontier Women
A Series Edited by
Maureen Ursenbach Beecher
Volume 1
Winter Quarters
The 1846 –1848 Life Writings of Mary Haskin Parker Richards
Edited by Maurine Carr Ward
Volume 2
Mormon Midwife
The 1846 –1888 Diaries of
Patty Bartlett Sessions
Edited by Donna Toland Smart
Volume 3
The History of Louisa Barnes Pratt
Being the Autobiography of a Mormon Missionary Widow and Pioneer
Edited by S. George Ellsworth
Volume 4
Out of the Black Patch
The Autobiography of Effi e Marquess Carmack
Folk Musician, Artist, and Writer
Edited by Noel A. Carmack and Karen Lynn Davidson
Volume 5
The Personal Writings of Eliza Roxcy Snow
Edited by Maureen Ursenbach Beecher
Volume 6
A Widow’s Tale
The 1884–1896 Diary of Helen Mar Kimball Whitney
Transcribed and Edited by Charles M. Hatch and Todd M. Compton
Volume 7
No Place to Call Home
The 1807–1857 Life Writings of Caroline Barnes Crosby
Chronicler of Outlying Mormon Communities
Edited by Edward Leo Lyman, Susan Ward Payne,
and S. George Ellsworth
Patience Loader Rozsa Archer, August 23, 1827–April 22, 1921. Photo courtesy of
Drusilla Smith.
Recollections of Past Days
The Autobiography of
Patience Loader Rozsa Archer
Edited by
Sandra Ailey Petree
(cid:1)
Utah State University Press
Logan, Utah
2006
Copyright © 2006 Utah State University Press
All rights reserved
Utah State University Press
Logan, Utah 84322-7800
Manufactured in the United States of America
Printed on acid-free paper
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Archer, Patience Loader, 1827-1921.
Recollections of past days : the autobiography of Patience Loader Rozsa Archer
/ edited by Sandra Ailey Petree
p. cm. -- (Life writings of frontier women ; v. 8)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-87421-626-5 (cloth : alk. paper) ISBN 0-87421-531-5 (e-book)
1. Archer, Patience Loader, 1827-1921. 2. Mormon women--United States--
Biography. 3. Mormon women--England--Biography. 4. Edward Martin
Emigrating Company. 5. Mormons--Emigration and immigration. 6. Utah
Expedition, 1857-1858. I. Petree, Sandra Ailey, 1945-
II. Title. III. Series.
X8695.A72A3 2006
973.5092--dc22
2005036652
Contents
Maps and Illustrations vii
Foreword
Maureen Ursenbach Beecher ix
Acknowledgments vii
Introduction 1
“Reccolections of past days”
England,
1827–December 1855 21
On the John J. Boyd,
December 1855–February 1856 49
America,
February–July 1856 55
Starting Westward,
July 3–July 28, 1856 58
On the Plains,
July 28–November 30, 1856 62
In the Valley,
November 30, 1856 –December 1858 89
Camp Floyd,
December 1858–July 27, 1861 98
On the Trail to Washington,
July 27–November 1861 107
Washington,
November 1861–April 1866 123
Back to Utah,
April 18–July 21, 1866 135
Back in the Valley,
July 21, 1866 –1872 142
Afterword 158
Appendices
Appendix 1
James and Amy Britnell Loader Family 165
Appendix 2
John and Patience Loader Rozsa Family 167
Appendix 3
The Latter-day Saints Millennial Star on Handcart Emigration,
December 22, 1855 169
Appendix 4
The Mormon on Handcart Emigration, December 1, 1855 175
Appendix 5
Patience Loader to John Jaques and his reply, The Latter-day
Saints Millennial Star, June 14, 1856 182
Appendix 6
Marshall Loader to Amy Britnell Loader,August 6, 1857 188
Appendix 7
Patience Loader Rozsa Archer to Tamar Loader Ricks,
November 17, 1914 189
Notes 192
Bibliography 249
Index 257
Illustrations
Patience Loader Rozsa Archer frontis
Front cover of Patience Loader’s writing tablet 16
First page of “Reccolections of past days.” 17
Gardener’s cottage, Aston Rowant, England 22
Front door of gardener’s cottage 23
Patience’s mother, Amy Britnell Loader 24
Map of England 28
Illustrations of bathing machines 37
Jacob’s Ladder, Ramsgate, England 38
Map of the United States 64–65
Page 175 of the autobiography’s second notebook 78
Devil’s Gate 82
Mormon missionaries in England, 1855–1856 83
Inside Martin’s Cove 85
Entrance to Martin’s Cove 85
Map of Utah 97
The Carson Inn 99
Patience L. Rozsa wedding picture 100
John Rozsa wedding picture 101
Military trunk used by Patience 141
Amy Rosalie Rozsa 144
Patience’s home in Pleasant Grove 147
A young William Rozsa 148
Map of American Fork, Utah 150
Four-generation photograph taken about 1921 160
Patience and sisters at Salt Lake Temple Dedication 162
Patience Loader Rozsa Archer in about 1922 164

Foreword
Maureen Ursenbach Beecher
With the publication of Recollections of Past Days: The Autobiography of
Patience Loader Rozsa Archer comes the continuing fulfi llment of a dream
that began ten years ago when John Alley, editor at Utah State University
Press, agreed that Life Writings of Frontier Women was indeed a market-
able series. The seven volumes already published, to personal and profes-
sional acclaim, have proven their worth. Each of the women refl ected in
the series has had her own unique voice, her own appeal. Now we bring
you Patience Loader’s account, a captivating narrative such as would have
enthralled live audiences as it does later readers. My own attachment
to Patience’s story is that it was with her description of the 1856 Martin
handcart tragedy that my love of these texts began.
Early in my exploration of women’s life writings, I shared tidbits of
Patience’s memoir with my eighty-fi ve-year-old mother, my “common reader,”
the one whose judgment I most relied upon. Her response assured me that
the kinship of faith and sacrifi ce, courage and sisterhood does indeed tran-
scend circumstance and generation, that the women writers in our series
would speak their stories as honestly and meaningfully to us as to their con-
temporaries. Now, after eight volumes have appeared, I am still of that mind.
As the series began, however, there was no editor for Patience
Loader. Five years passed before Sandra Petree, then a PhD candidate
at the University of Arkansas, completed her superb dissertation, “The
Power of the Word: Self-Inscription in the Journals of Nineteenth-Century
Mormon Women.” Reading her text, we realized that here was the right
person to edit Patience’s narrative. She agreed and began work. Her own
teaching, her family responsibilities, and the death of her husband inter-
rupted but briefl y the research that would take her west to Utah and east
to England in pursuit of details that would enhance her understanding of
Patience and her times and places. Dr. Petree has read well, understood
splendidly, and now presents with admirable scholarship the story that
Patience Loader Rozsa Archer left us.
We are grateful.
ix