A History of My Mother - Annie Woodhouse Candland

By: Fannie V. Candland

I have always felt that the average pioneer woman has been sadly neglected in the recording the history of the State of Utah. I am therefore writing a short sketch of my mother's life, as I consider her a typical Pioneer woman.

Annie Woodhouse was born in Audrick, Lee Street, Yorkshire, England on November 13, 1838, the daughter of Charles Woodhouse and Ann Long Woodhouse. Her widowed mother embraced the gospel of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and came to America with her children when Annie was 12 years old. With her mother, brothers and sisters, Annie walked across the plains to Salt Lake City in 1852 in Hyrum Jeppson's handcart company.

The journey was a long and hard one. Scouts were sent ahead to see if the way was clear. When they came back with word that a creek of water was near the children would take off their shoes and stockings and wade in the water.

At the time a company of saints on arriving in Salt Lake City found no furnished homes awaiting them but were taken into the homes and hearts of the saints who had preceded them. Mother went to live with the family of David Candland and cared for his wife Mary Ann who had contracted what was then called "galloping consumption." This illness was a result of exreme privations while crossing the plains with her small daughters while her husband was filling a mission to the Eastern Sates and British Provinces.

Mother remained in the Candland home and on November 5, 1855, at the age of 16, she was married to David Candland in the Endowment House. He was 20 years her senior. Less than 3 years later Mary Ann died leaving 4 young daughters for Annie to raise.

When I was I often heard it said that as soon as a pioneer gilr put on long dresses she had every old man in teh place chasing after her and simply had to marry one of the old men to get rid of them, One day I asked mother hwo she came to marry a man 20 years older when she was such a pretty young girl. She promptly replied, "Because he was the handsomest man in Salt Lake City." More than 50 years of love, companionship and struggle convinced me that her love was genuine.

I wish I could make you see mother. Her eyes were such a dark blued they looked purple. Her rosy cheeks remained until the day of her death at the age of 83. Nature had set a permanent wave in her golden brown hair which has never been excelled by modern experts.

In the succeeding years Salt Lake grew from a village in the wilderness to a thriving city with its theatre, university, social hall and restaurants. Father's splendid education placed him far ahead of his time. He and his family enjoyed to the fullest all the advantages offered by the little city.

In 1861 father, with others, was called by Brigham Young to go south and help settle Sanpete county which was inhavited solely by hostile Indians, coyotes and jack rabbits. Against their desires father's wives Annie, Hannah and Kate packed away their pretty dresses, a few personal treasures, bundled up the children and left for Sanpete. They left a new home with the only wall papered parlor in the city and landed in a dugout with walls that had been plastered by bare hands and still bore the finger prints in the dry plaster. Mother said, "Father never made a complaint and we were ashamed to."

In the struggle through unbelievable hardships and dangers,their faith sustained them and very soon they had established a little new empire in the wilderness.

Mother was put in charge of the first post office in Mt. Pleasant because the government refused to recognize father, who was a polygamist. Soon there was a family of growing boys who need room to develop and an opportunity to work. With other neighbors the family moved to Chester, ten miles to the south, where there was plenty of good farming land.

Mother was a very good cook and though times were hard and things hard to get, she could always fix a dinner. Her mince pies and cookies were known for miles around.

She always kept her house and children very clean. IT was said about her that no matter the time of day you went to her house she always looked as if she had just come out of a band box. She always wore a sack, as she called it, with a skirt. Over this she wore a full apron, tied around her waist. She always had a piece of white ruching around her neck. On Sunday she wore a white apron. To do her garden work and chores she wore an apron made out of blue denim which hung just inside the kitchen door. She kept father's clothes spotless and althought ey were so warn they shined they were always mended and pressed.

She was the soul of system and this combined with her unconquerable spirit and determination were her leading characteristics. When she made up her mind to do a thing it was as god as done. The word failure had no place in her vocabulary. Early to bed and early to rise was tghe strongest article in her creed.

Let's follow the daily routine of life on a farm that faced those pioneer women:

Monday was wash day. The hard alkali water must first be softened by other water drained through oak wood ashes and heated in a huge boiler on the kitchen stove over a wood fire. The only soap was a compound of bits of fat and the aforesaid water that had been drained through hard wood ashes. Each separated piece in the wash must be rubbed on a wash board, put through two waters, boiled, rinsed, blued and then dry. The clothes were hung to dry on outdoor lines in the heat of the summer or the biting cold of the winter and were held on the line with small tin pins. Wooden pins had not as yet made an appearance. in the winter clothes and hands alike were frozen stiff. The clothes were finally brought in the house piece by piece and hung to dry on a line behind the kitchen stove after the family had gone to bed.

preparing three meals a day for a hungry and steadily increasing family was no easy task in itself. Our table was always properly set--red and white or blue and white checkered table clothes were used for every day meals and white tablecloths on Sunday. I can never remember eating off an oil cloth. Each child had his own place, plate and mug. I think we learned to read from the alphabet on the rim of our plate.

We were not told the facts of life when were were four or five years old. New babies came into the home as a matter of course and were welcomed and loved. The older children took turns rocking the cradle. Mother had 9 boys and 2 girls.

The ironing was done with sad irons which were heated on top of the kitchen stove oer a wood fire.

Churning, baking, mending, and knitting stockings for the entire family was sandwiched somehow in the day's activities. Most clothing was made at home.

Mother was a very practical woman. If we were inclined to complain she always reminded us to be thankful for what we had and make the most of it---to out our shirt according to our cloth.

In summer caring for the vegetable garden and even milking the cows usualy fell to the lot of the women. The men were busy with the harvesting and hte hauling of the winter's supply of wood. It took 2 to 3 days to get a load of wood and it required 12 to 15 loads to see us through the winter. The tenth load went to tithing. The "grub-box" for these arduous trips had to be filled with good nourishing food.

Spring housecleaning meant whitewashing the walls with lime, filling the bed ticks with fresh straw, and tacking down a new rag carpet over a straw covered floor. All this was the work of women.

Saturday the entire house had to be cleaned for Sunday. Water was heated in the wash boiler and a wash tub was hauled in by the kitchen stove. Then mother took charge bathing the youngest one first and going straight up the line. There was not fresh water for each one--just a dipper or two of warm. My sister, who was some way up the line, declared that when it came her turn the water was so thick she could out it in nice thin slices.

Sunday morning breakfast called for hot chocolate or something a little special. We slipped into our Sunday clothes and father, being the Sunday School Superintendent and owning a light spring wagon, gathered up every child int eh neighborhood. The youngest sat in teh seat with him, the little girls sat flat on the bottom of the back and the little boys hung on behing. Mother stayed home cook a good Sunday dinner.

At home again our Sunday clothes were taken off, folded up carefully and put in our very own littel boxes ready for next Sunday. We had no clothes closets in those days. When dinner was over and the dishes were washed father and mother drove off to a 2 PM meeting and we were free to play. This schedule was maintained year in and year out.

Let me impress this fact on your minds. The work was never considered drudgery, and the women never looked like drudges. They were filling the mission for which they were placed on earth and were happy and satisfied.

Father had several wives, but as mother was the first wife who was living at the time of the Manifesto, he married her again to make it legal. He provided a home for his other wicves so they would not need for anything. When mother received her Black Hawk pension she received some money as back pay. After paying her tithing she gave half of what was left to the other remaining wife. Ask why she did it, she said that she wanted to meet father with a clear conscience.

Mother lived to the age of 83 and died April 14, 1922 secure in the faith she had adopted as a child, happy in the knowledge of a grand reunion with those of her loved ones who had preceded her.

I will always maintain that if there wer any reserved seats in Heaven they will be occupied by these early pioneer women who, with no help except an occasional mid-wife or neighbor, brought large families into the world and somehow kept them fed, clothed and warm and sent hem out into the world as good, respectable citizens with confidence in themselves and the future and an abiding faith in a just and beneficient God. Today that same faith is our greatest heritage.