BOYCE, ELLA EUGENIA DISPAIN 1861 HISTORY OF ELLA EUGENIA DISPAIN BOYCE PIONEER OF 1861 By Daughter, Leona Boyce Clark Mt. Joy Camp Ella Eugenia Dispain Boyce was the daughter of Solomon J. Dispain and Ruth Amelia Newell. She was born in Miss. Co. Arkansas, August 27, 1858 on an island in the Mississippi River called Dean's Island. The summer before she was three years old her folks started north to join some of the immigrants that were going to Utah, they joined Captain David Cameon train, arriving in Salt Lake Valley, August 17th, 1861. From here her father went to the mouth of Little Cottonwood canyon, and lived in one of the quarry houses. There was no settlement for sometime after this there wasn't any church or school. Later Thaddase Griffith taught school for several winters, also a Miss. Bates taught a year. Later years they moved to Salt Lake so the children could go to school for three months. The smelters were then started in Granite at the Mouth of Little Cottonwood Canyon. The Telegraph Co. wanted to establish a telegraph office in Mr. Dispain's boarding house and Ella was sent to Salt Lake to learn Telegraphy. Then she kept the office until the smelters closed down. They moved to South Cottonwood and Ella went to school one winter, as the State was short of teachers, she taught school here one winter, then the school board sent her to the University of Deseret, she took a normal course and then taught school one winter in Fairfield. While living in South Cottonwood, she was an active church worker and at the age of 16 she was called with others to go to the Old Endowment House and have their Endowments. The family then moved back to Granite and at the age of twenty she was married to John Boyce. She had eleven children 6 girls and 3 5 boys, besides raising four girls by Mr Boyce's first wife, as she had died leaving these small children. Ella has always been active in church work, she served as President, counselor and teacher in the Relief Society of Granite at different times, and a special missionary in the ward with Lila Dispain and did practical nursing for a number of years. They moved to Morgan in the year 1918. She still went out nursing Later she was chosen as the Captain of the Utah Pioneers of Morgan Co. and was the first County President of Daughters of Utah Pioneers in Morgan Co. Later they moved to Salt Lake City where they worked in the Temple, a work she and father both enjoyed very much. She did a lot of her family genealogy work, which she enjoyed doing, She also wrote histories of the family. She wanted to find out the postarity of her fathers family. Her father Solomon J. Dispain had 879 descendants in 1934. She spent the remaining years of her life visiting with her children. She visited one daughter in Illinois, another in California, and another one in Arizonia. She spent sometime with the three daughters in Morgan, one son in Pocatello, and her last visit was with a daughter living in Elko, Nevada, she contracted a bad cold while visiting here, which developed in to pneumonia, of which she died, January 8,1938 at the age of 80 years.