Jane Margaret Nelson Tidwell

by Thelma Tidwell Jacobsen and Eunice Tidwell Merrill

 

Jane Margaret Nelson was born September 12, 1862 at Smithfield, Utah. She supposedly was the first baby girl born in the Smithfield Fort.  She said the story was told that when Elizabeth Joseph Nelson, Jane's mother, was down at the creek getting a bucket of water, a neighbor, Alice Done, asked her if someone was sick as she heard people up during the night.  Elizabeth invited Alice to come in the cabin and see.  How surprised she was when she saw the new baby girl and that her mother was up and going so soon.

 

Grandma always said she was the tenth child. Her parents said if she had been a boy they would have turned him in for tithing, but since she was a girl, they couldn't part with her.

 

Her parents were of sturdy stock and had endured much in accepting the Gospel which was preached to them in their native Ireland. They moved to Scotland where they worked and prepared to come to America around 1849/50. Treacherous seas caused them to think all was lost until a brother suggested that they all kneel down and ask for Heavenly Father's help. From that time on they enjoyed the calmest seas of their 11-week voyage. They spent a couple of years in St. Louis and arrived in Salt Lake the fall of 1852, with Elizabeth walking almost the whole way carrying her little baby. Pop Bolling had a chicken coop that he thought they could fix up. It was better than the wagon box. It had a stove and camp kettle. They then moved to Farmington for eight years and on to Smithfield in 1860.

 

They lived in a little log hut inside the fort as protection from the Indians. There were two men killed: Arlie Merrill in Smithfield and his brother wounded, and one in Richmond.  Brigham Young told the saints it was better to feed the Indians than to fight them. The Indians became quiet and quite reconciled and the people began moving out of the fort.

 

Times got better for the LDS people.  Janie's parents started farming. They stood firm and true. They felt the spirit of the Lord.

 

Jane worked in the first religion classes which were taught on Friday afternoons after school as they didn't allow religion in the school.  She taught in the Primary organization for six years and was in the Relief Society Presidency for 18 years. She was president of the Sarah Woodruff Camp of the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers for two years. She served with Ida Merrill, another Merrill, Ellie Claypool and Emma Hillyard on the Committee of Old Folks Reunion for seven years. She was proud of the fact that they worked together for so long and never had a cross word between them.

 

She was pleased when 216 people came to visit her at the open house held for her 90th birthday.  (The above information was gleaned from an audiotape made off a record made by Joe and Thelma Jacobsen.)

 

I have such fond memories of Grandma Tidwell. She was the only grandparent I really knew.  Barbara and I would stop on our way home from school to give her a hug and get a cookie.  She called them Poor Man Cookies.  We loved them. They were a plain sugar cookie with cinnamon and sugar sprinkled on top.

 

We loved to "keel over" on her white metal fence and would have loved to walk along the pipes, but that was forbidden as it would scratch the paint.

 

Grandma knit hundreds of pairs of socks for the soldiers during World War II. She did a lot of crocheting also.

 

She was pleased that people were amazed she could read from the Sunday School manual without wearing glasses when she was in her 80's. Her eyesight did eventually fail as she developed cataracts on her eyes. We would stop in on the way home from school and thread needles for her, which she would hang in the curtain.  She was a very independent woman.  I can also remember her having us check her sinks to make sure they were clean.

 

We moved to 203 North Main, across the street from Grandma, when I was a sophomore in high school, as we had such a large yard at 91 East 3rd North and there was much too much work for my Mom to do. Dad was so good to Grandma. He would go over to light the fire, and Mom would send over a cooked meal to Grandma each day. I remember Dad would get tears in his eyes after she was gone as he would recall her, and he would express his great love for her.  I remember his saying how wonderful dreams were as he could share this time with her even though it was not reality.

 

I loved listening to Grandma tell me of her younger days when she was outside doing the "wash day" scrubbing. When she would see a man pass, she would roll down her sleeves so he wouldn't see her bare arms. She always wore shimmeys, petticoats, long brown stockings and long-sleeved and long-legged underclothing.  I guess a few layers would come off in the summer, but I was amazed at the "unseen" layered look when I would stay overnight with her.

 

Remembrances come to my mind of how awful she thought it was to hear the radio advertisements for Carter's Little Liver Pills (a laxative).  Grandma was modest and pure in thought.

 

Grandma died while I was in Alaska where my husband was stationed in the Air Force. I did not see her in her failing years, so I remember her as an erect, stalwart individual whose only problem was diminished eyesight and hearing. I am so proud of the example of pioneer heritage that came to me through this good woman.