SECTION II 

NAME: Sarah Marinda Burnham

BIRTH PLACE: near Keosaqua, Iowa

BIRTH DATE: 10 Sept 1846

DEATH DATE: 28 March 1925

DEATH PLACE: Redmesa, La Plata, Colo

FATHER: Warren Smith

MOTHER: Amanda Melissa Barnes

DATE TO THE VALLEY: 18 Oct 1850

COMPANY: Warren Smith, Father, TYPE: wagon-train

HUSBAND: George Franklin Burnham

MARRIAGE: 7 Nov 1861, Richmond, Utah

BIRTH DATE: 26 Oct 1839

DEATH DATE: 14 or 15 Oct 1901, Colo

ACCOMPLISHMENTS: Sarah's parents left Nauvoo in July 1856, and were in Iowa when Sarah was born in a lean-to tarp tent during a rainstorm. They were camped on the west bank of the Des Moines River. Sarah only weighed 2 1/2 pounds at birth but the great  faith and endurance of her mother, Amanda, raised her to womanhood and to be the mother of twelve children.

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MARY ANN HUNTLEY BURNHAM (YOUNG)

1816 - 1903

By Elinor G. Hyde (1995)

Mary Ann Huntley was born 14 Mar/May 1816 in Waistfield, Vermont, was the daughter of Allen Huntley and Sally Hitchock Huntley. If there were more children in her immediate family at present time it is not known. Both the Hitchcock and Huntly families had come to New England in the 1600's. There's was a tradition of all the early settlers to America's activities—that of clearing land, establishing communities and all this entailed.

On 4 November 1834 Mary Ann married James Lewis Burnham. In 1837 thye moved to McHenry County, Illinois with one child, Luther Clinton Burnham, born in 1835. Land was available in the then frontier.

We know little about their life except they had a son Wallace Kendall Burnham, born at Woodstock, McHenry County, on 24 Jan. 1838. Another son, George Franklin Burnham followed 26 Oct. 1839.

James Lewis Burnham was a minister of the Church called Christians, according to his daughter, Mary Ann Burnham Freeze. They were living in Beauro County, Illinois, having moved there in 1843 when they came in contact with the Gospel. 

James was baptized 15 May 1843, and ordained an elder the same day, and then continued on his circuit riding, but now teaching Mormon doctrine. We do not know when Mary Ann was baptized, but likely about the same time. They had a daughter ^{Maria Antoinette}born 7 Aug. 1843 and are next knows to be in Nauvoo, Illinois with the body of the Latter-day Saints. 

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While James worked on the temple, Mary Ann cared for the children and kept their home in order. Her three little boys were a handful, and Wallace later noted several accidents he encountered. He had two fingers cut off on his right hand, when he and an older brother were playing near a chopping block. Then he climbed up to watch some little pigs, and fell into a pen, and nearly was devoured by the mother. He was playing on the wood pile and was bitten by a rattlesnake.

Mary Ann quickly filled a large coffee pot with mud and his foot was placed in it, which brought relief.

Later, his father was carrying a mowing scythe along a path and Wallace run up behind him, causing his father to turn around quickly. The scythe caught the little boy in the  back of the neck and threw him some distance. Poor James thought he'd killed the son, but he recovered, although always kept the scar.

If Mary Ann let the boys out of sight, they were into more trouble. Wallace followed his older brother to a stream where a hole had been cut in the ice to get water, and fell in. By the time he was fished out he was more dead than alive.

The climate in Nauvoo was not good for little Maria Antonette, who died 1 6 Dec. 1844. A grieving Mary Ann and James did the best they could to help her, but it was of no avail.

James continued to work on the temple, perhaps now and then asked if he were related to another James Burnham who had left Nauvoo to serve a mission about the time they arrived. 

That James Burnham died while serving in Massachusetts as a missionary and so far as the family knew, was of no relation.
James Lewis Burnham's health was not good but he labored in the rock quarry for the temple. His health continued to deteriorate and he died 8 Oct. 1845. Mary Ann was devastated, and she, also was not well, with the birth of a baby due any minute. Little Mary Ann was born four days later.

Mary Ann's oldest son Luther wrote of those difficult time. He had lost his father, and feared his mother would die, also. Hew as almost ten, with Wallace seven and George just turning six. That she struggled is an understatement.

When Mary Ann's family learned of her plight she knew they would gladly have sent her means to go back, but she had "cast her lot with the Saints of God and preferred to remain with them in the depths of poverty than to have the wealth of the whole world elsewhere. She truly was destitute at the time. Perhaps she was one the Relief Society helped, in their caring for the poor. After the temple was completed, she was able to have her endowments, with Joseph Young standing proxy for her deceased husband. Joseph was the brother of Brigham Young. Later she married him^{Joseph Young}, and had two daughters. 

In 1846 she was still in Nauvoo and went through the battle of Nauvoo. It was a dreadful experience. She received a wagon for her city property and was lent a yoke of oxen that she might move with her four little children.

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Mary Ann remembered her mother telling them how the mobs came searching all wagons looking for arms. Their obscene language was appalling  and frightening. She was consumed with fear. They finally arrived at Winter Quarters in the fall of 1846, though they had to move back to the east side of the river because the ywere on Indian territory.

In 1848 she decided to send her second and third sons to the Valley. They traveled as herd boys with Daniel Wood, who was a stern man. It would be five years before Mary Ann Burnham, now Young, would see her sons. Wallace Kendall Burnham was ten, and George Clinton ^{conflicting names} only eight. They were in Heber C. Kimball's Company. Later Luther and Mary Ann would discuss the want and distress they endured, almost amounting to starvation. 

The Burnham tradition suggests Joseph Young deserted her, but likely he was involved with his duties as a member of the Seventies. Each little group had to fend for themselves.

Finally, in 1852 they were able to leave, through the kindness of the brethren. Mary Ann's daughter, Mary Ann Burnham Freeze, said she was too little to remember much, but was run over by both wheels of the wagon and very badly hurt. She was administered to and almost instantly was healed, with no bad effects from the fall after.

The family settled in Bountiful, Davis County, Utah. Mary Ann made hats, and knitted, among other things. She made a pair of garments for one of the leading brethren. They arrived in Utah, Oct. 8. When her sons moved to Richmond, she went also, in 1861.

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Mary Ann's life was typical of the times, but made more difficult by being left a widow. Her two daughters born to her as the wife of Joseph Young were Myra Young Russel and Clara Young Conrad. (Her daughter, Mary Ann Freeze, was Pres. of the YLMIA of Salt Lake Stake.) She died 10 Nov. 1903, in Salt Lake City, Utah. Mary Ann Huntley Burnham had lived a good life, stayed true to the faith that changed her life, and was honored with a large posterity. She was eighty seven years of age at the time of her death.

Resources: 

Wallace Kendall Burnham, Stories of his Life copy in possession of Elinor G. Hyde, Salt Lake City.

Mary A. Freeze, President of the Y.L.M.I.A. of the Salt Lake Stake of Zion, Representative Women of Deseret p. 51-56

History of the Y.L.M.I.A. Mary A. Freeze p. 74-75