Mary Ann Knight Ford Simmons 28 Mary Ann knight Ford Simmons, the daughter of William and Mary Ann Knight Ford, was born in Chieckfield, parish Sussex, England, November 25, 1827. My parents belonged to the Pro¬testant Church and made a practice of going to church every Sunday as a rule. I did not go to Sunday School, as we lived four miles from the church; I went to school and passed away my young days as most young people do; I often thought there was something wrong with the religion of the day. When I was nearly 15 years old, my mother passed away, and at the age of sixteen the church men came around to hunt up the young folks to be confirmed and belong to the church; I told them that I did not wish to for I still felt there was something wrong or missing. After I went to live at Bri-ghton with my brother. I went to all the chapels to hear what they preached, it did not sound right, and I felt it was not what I was looking for; I was honest but I could not tell what I was looKing for or wanted to hear. Time passed and I left my brother's, hired some rooms, started a school for small children, and took in needlework; after a time I was married to George Simmons, a carpenter, on December 24, 1849. He and his brother used to take large jobs and have men to work for them; they happened to get a Mormon to work for them and they talked for and against Mormonism. after a time my husband asked me to go ana hear what they had to say, he was not at all religious, so I went to hear them preach as soon as I could; when I heard them I knew that it was what I was hunting for. I had a baby boy on September 12, 1851, on september 6 I was baptized and on the 12th of September I was confirmed and my baby, then one year old, was blessed at the same time, by Henry Hollish. The 18th of July, 1853 I had a baby girl; the 14th of April 1855 we left Brighton and went to Liverpool and said good-bye to old England. We sailed on the old ship Chimarazo, under the direction of Edward Stevenson; we went on the tub as a steerage passenger and we did not have a very grand time; we landed in Philadelphia, we sailed up the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers; we landed in the night at St. Louis; the next day we went to the camping grounds called Mormon Grove; we were two weeks getting started on the plains. There was another company camping there and it was said that they were from Texas; when the Saints were persecuted they went away and when the things were quiet again, they started to go to Utah but the Lord stopped them, for they were taken down with cholera and died; they left the grove before we did. When we started, we passed by their graves, five and six in one grave; we travelled along over hills and dales. sometimes the travel¬ing was good and sometimes poor; when we were about a two day journey from Laramie, a sister was making a bed in the wagon; a gun was there and it went off, and shot her arm, and broke the bone half way between the shoulder and the elbow; they took her to Laramie but she died before they got her there. As we were going west we met the grasshoppers going East. For days they were so thick we could not see the Sun. I had a baby boy on the 16th of August which only lived a half hour. Then we started on our journey. In about a week or so we had a stampede; it was dreadful to hear the oxen bellow, tho women and children screaming, and the wagons rattle, but our wagon was not bothered or our oxen did not start. I think if they had it would have Killed me. No one in camp thought I would have got to Salt Lake, but I did and am alive yet. Our troubles did not end here, for there was nothing to eat and no one had anything to spare, for the grasshoppers had eaten up everything. How we lived through the winter I could not tell, the Lord only knows. He blessed us or we could not have got through. We were without fire, and the children had to sit with myself on the bed with the bedclothes around us to Keep warm, but we lived through the winter. We lived two months on frozen potatoes, and the coarest of the sifting of cornmeal. When I got better I went around all over town to try and get some needlework to do; I got a man's shirt to make. when spring came we had our garden to eat from and work was to be gotten, then we went to the endowment house. On the 5th of June I had a baby girl and in 1861 we moved to Morgan; there we had a log house with a dirt roof and floor. For seven years we had the grasshoppers, we lost our crop through drought, we had to go to Salt Lake for our groceries, we made our own cloth, we made our lye out of ashes, and starch out of potatoes, molasses from beets, we had no sugar, we had the first brickhouse in south Morgan; it had seven rooms. in March 1877 I was called to be first councilor in the Relief Society of south Morgan ward; in 1884 I was called to be second councilor to the Morgan Stake; in 1889 the ward was reorganised. I had a brother and wife in Australia; they send me money to go there and visit them, so I resigned being councilor in the stake in 1889 as I had made up my mind if I came back I would live in Salt Lake and work in the Temple. My husband passed away in September 1897. In May 1898 I went to Australia; I returned home in May 1899 in November 1899 I moved to Salt Lake City, before this I had been to Logan Temple several times to work there; I joined the genealogical society to hunt up names I did not know; I did not find but a few so I had to send to an agent in England to get me names of my relatives. My sister-in-law had passed away, and my brother sent for me to go again to Australia and I went. They knew the first time I was a Mormon, but a neighbor of my brother's did not want me to come, so they were not backward in telling him what bad people the Mormons were, that was in the year of 1906. He was rich in this world's goods; he disowned me and wanted me to go back home which I did in 1907. While there I bought books and tracts of the elders and went among the people to leave a tract with them doing missionary work, being the first one to do missionary work in Williamstown, Australia. I took much pleasure in doing it; I converted one lady; it was not long before I came away and I don't think she was baptized; I think her family was against it; I returned back to Salt Lake City and started again to worK in the Temple, in 1914 my brother died and did not give me a cent; he had no one belonging to him; he had no relatives but myself; he gave it to others who were nothing to him. I want to say and feel at all times the Lord will be done; I am now living at Farmington, Davis County; I am in my 89th year; I have 12 children, seven living, five dead; 73 grandchildren, nine of which have passed away; and 36 great grandchildren, seven of which have passed away; and one great-great grandchild. Died July 13, 1920. by...... Mary Ann Simmons.