Married Abraham Washburn
Flora-Philena-Irvin-Marie
Died 13 Aug 1900 in Monroe
Buried in Monroe
1850 Census
1860 Census
1870 Census
1880 Census
1900 Census
This history was written by Flora's daughter Lorena Eugenia Washburn Larsen:
Flora Clarinda Gleason was born August 2,
1819 at Tolland Birkshire, Massachusetts. She was the daughter
of Joel Gleason and Lorena Williams. Flora’s parents moved to Lenox, Ohio in
1824. Her mother died sixteen days after their arrival there,
leaving a baby two weeks old. Her father married sometime
after this, a woman named Sarah or Sally Vanburg.
Flora lived sometimes at home and sometimes
with relatives during her childhood. Early in her young
womanhood, she went out to nurse under the doctors. She
also took up dressmaking as a side issue to keep herself
employed when not nursing. She continued as a nurse for
many years.
In her young womanhood she was engaged to
be married to a young man by the name of Hugh Gillon, and
she looked forward to their future with much happiness.
He died before their wedding day.
Flora joined the Church of Jesus Christ
of Latter-day Saints and longed to gather with the saints
at Nauvoo, but the parents of her dead sweetheart pleaded
with her to come and live with them for awhile. She finally
consented and lived with them perhaps two years or more.
They had two daughters who were young women, the family
was wealthy and when they bought anything for their own
daughters they bought just the same for Flora. The girls
had everything they could wish for, many changes of the
finest clothing, and when they went to a ball or dance they
would change clothing two or three times during the evening,
a complete change of expensive clothing or ball costume
that must harmonize perfectly.
The Gillon family did not belong to the
L.D.S. Church, but Hugh Gillon, before his death, and his
people after his death would take mother in their carriage
sometimes several miles to the L.D.S. Church and they never
raised any opposition to her religious belief. She had a
longing to gather with the body of the church but often
wondered how she could get a reasonable excuse to leave
those dear kind people who loved her and wanted her to stay
with them always as their own daughter. Finally her father
came for her and wanted her to go home with him as her stepmother
had died and he was lonely. She went with him and kept house
for him for nearly a year.
Flora’s father was very fond of the society
of young people, and often when a crowd came in to spend
the evening if he had retired for the night, he would get
up, dress, and join in their games and dancing. In those
days people learned to dance under dancing masters who taught
them to dance with grace and skill, Flora Clarinda said
that her father could dance with a glass of water on top
of his head and never spill a drop.
After those months at home with her father
she gathered with the saints at Macedonia, twenty-two miles
from Nauvoo, and she lived with Patriarch John Smith's family.
John Smith was an uncle of Joseph Smith the prophet. He
gave Flora her Patriarchal Blessing which is still treasured
in the family though it is old and worn with its more than
ninety years.
When Flora Clarinda first came to Macedonia
she stayed a few days with a friend and while they were
out visiting a neighbor one evening a mob set fire to their
home and everything that Flora owned was burned. She had
seven silk dresses burned in that fire besides beautiful
slips, stockings, shoes, and slippers and many other valuable
things. She had a longing to see the Prophet Joseph,
but did not go to Nauvoo because of losing all her best
clothing.
While living in Macedonia, Flora Clarinda
was chosen president of a Relief Society which was organized
there, shortly after Emma Smith was chosen at Nauvoo. Flora
was the second President of a Relief Society in the LDS
Church.
After the death of the Prophet Joseph Smith,
Flora lived with the family of Benjamin Franklin Johnson
in the Mansion House in Nauvoo, the former home of Joseph
Smith. She did dressmaking to earn her living.
Flora received her endowments in the Nauvoo
Temple and was married there to Benjamin Franklin Johnson
December 1, 1845.
Flora went through the trials and persecutions
of that time, and when the saints were compelled to leave
Nauvoo, she with B.F. Johnson, his wife Melissa and Melissa's
children started among the first for the Rocky Mountains.
Flora and Melissa loved each other. Flora often said that
Melissa was as fine a woman as ever lived. She also said
that Melissa's death was partly due to the conduct of her
husband. On the way, before reaching Winter Quarters, B.
F. Johnson lagged behind and let Flora travel on with the
company they had started with. She expected every hour that
he and the rest of his family would overtake them, but Mr.
B.F. Johnson had decided that he wanted another wife and
continued to stay behind to do the courting.
Flora arrived at Winter Quarters where the
saints were stopping for the winter, and found that the
men in camp were building houses as rapidly as possible
for their own families and also for the people who came
later. They were housing everyone as fast as possible. But
the winter was on and some were not yet provided for. Abraham
Washburn began building a chimney in a house so Flora Clarinda
could have a shelter from the cold and storms but before
the chimney could be completed on January 15, 1847 her first
child was born while she was still living in her wagon [Clarinda Huetta who married Zenas Wingate].
One neighbor woman did her washing and others
brought her cooked food. During the first week after
the baby's birth a snow storm came on and Flora's washing
which was hung on the brush had not been gathered in, so
on the seventh day she dressed herself and went out and
shook the snow from her clothes and brought them into her
wagon. The blessing of God was with her and she did not
suffer any bad effects from this dangerous experience.
Early in the spring of 1848 Flora Clarinda
traveled on with one of the companies to Salt Lake City
and she never saw B. F. Johnson from the time he first lagged
behind until long after her arrival in Utah. To get provisions to travel with from Winter
Quarters to Salt Lake City was a problem, there was no dressmaking
to be done and nursing was done without price so Flora had
to learn a new trade. She went to the willow patches, gathered
willows, stripped off the bark, selected the finest ones,
and learned to make fancy willow baskets. She sent them
with some of the men in camp who went off to purchase food.
They sold them for food and in that way she procured provisions
to travel on.
Flora Clarinda had become alienated from
her husband on account of his conduct. She laid her case
before President Brigham Young. Johnson at first refused
to sign the divorce and sent it back to Salt Lake City unsigned,
but President Young said, “I will see that he does sign
it.”
Flora Clarinda Gleason was married to Abraham
Washburn February 11, 1849. Abraham Washburn was called to go and help
start a settlement at Manti, Utah. Men went into Sanpete
County, looked over the country, put up some wild hay, and
found plenty of grass in the region of the Sanpitch River
and decided that stock could easily winter out on the range.
The first company of settlers arrived at Manti November
21, 1849. Flora’s second child was born the next day, November
22, 1849. Almeda Maria Washburn was the first white child
born in Sanpete County. She married Alphonzo Wingate. The
night after the baby's birth the snow came knee deep, and
during that winter the thirty-five head of cattle which
Abraham drove on the range to winter died.
Flora Clarinda's first home was on the south
side of the Temple Hill toward the west point where the
first settlers built their first homes. The place was infested
with snakes, and one morning Flora found a large rattlesnake
on her mantle piece. Later Flora lived in the fort. Her house
was on the exact spot where now stands the little old rock
school house, just north of the court house and directly
across the street east from the Manti City Hall. Several
of her children were born there. The last was Lorena Eugenia
Washburn Larsen born January 10, 1860. Within the next two
years Abraham built a home for Flora Clarinda, one block
east and one and one-half blocks south of the Manti City
Hall. Abraham owned the strip running straight through to
Main Street. The Main Street side is now, in 1932, filled
with business houses.
In the early days in Manti there arrived
from Denmark two newly married couples, Christian Willardson
and wife; and Brother Scow and wife. They had no place for
shelter and couldn't speak a word of English. Flora saw
their condition and through an interpreter she told them
she would divide her one large room and let each couple
have one-fourth and she and her family would live in one-half
of it until they could do better. They gladly accepted the
offer and lived there for some time, the three families
cooking over one fire place. Neither they nor Flora could
speak a word to each other but it created a friendship which
lasted for life.
Flora was president of the Relief Society
in Manti for years. They held their meetings and socials
in the old Council House on the northeast corner of the
public square. On work meeting days, both mothers and daughters
would assemble. When a rush of work was on they would meet
at ten o'clock in the morning and something like the following
work would be engaged in: tidy and lace making, spinning
wool yarn and knitting men's socks, braiding straw, and
sewing hats for men, women, and children, carding wool bats
with hand cards, and making quilts, cutting and sewing rags
for rag carpets, piecing and making quilts.
On such occasions they would. have a picnic
luncheon at twelve or one o'clock, then continue work until
late afternoon. Such a good feeling of helpfulness and kindness
prevailed on those occasions that they were looked forward
to with pleasure. Very often such days ended with a dancing
party in the evening. The musicians usually furnished free
music, if they were given a good meal during the evening.
Flora taught many an emigrant woman to earn
a living in this new country by spinning yarn and knitting
men's socks which found ready sale in Salt Lake City for
fifty cents a pair. She also taught them to braid straw
and make hats and to spin yarn and weave cloth. They often
smiled and sometimes wept with gratitude and thanksgiving
for such a friend in this new and far off country from their
native home.
The pioneers of Sanpete county held yearly
County fairs. People would bring in all their home made
products, everything that their hands or the soil could
produce. There was always a fine display. In the fine arts
department you would find tidies and laces, crocheted, netted,
and knitted. Also drawn work and all kinds of needle
work. Fine straw hats trimmed with straw trimming, with
an art rose here and there, and men's and boys’ best hats
and work hats all made by the ladies of those pioneer days.
Flora did a great variety of work and took many prizes at
the fairs.
Sanpete County was very fortunate for in
the sixties there came from Britain a convert to the L.D.S.
Church, a man named Tatten who came to live in Manti. He
was a professional hat maker, who made fine beaver hats
for men, women, and boys.
Flora Clarinda had a large adobe oven at
the west side of her house where she baked forty loaves
of bread at one baking, she baked once a week and as the
bread was removed from the oven she would put in pies, cake,
and gingerbread to last the week. The bread was put into
a fine clean barrel in the cellar where large and small
barrels and jars of preserves and jam were stored for the
year-round use.
Fruit was scarce in Sanpete, but in the
years immediately after the Black Hawk Indian war Flora
took Hyrum, her oldest son and one of the girls and with
an ox team went to Utah county and dried fruit and put up
preserves and jam made of peaches, pears, apples, and plumbs
boiled in molasses. Often wild ground cherries were used,
both dried and preserved. Flora was a pioneer in bringing
fruit trees, berry plants and ornamental shrubs and flowers
into Manti. In the sixties they had apricots, peaches, gooseberries,
currants, both the english and black, and strawberries,
and some tomatoes. Abraham and the Wingate boys, his sons-in-law,
owned and operated a molasses mill and many a candy pulling
party was held at his home and at the neighbor's homes also.
In the early days when men and teams were
sent back on the pioneer trail to bring emigrants to Utah,
Flora Clarinda always baked racks of crackers. After Flora
had prepared the dough, every child that was large enough
was washed perfectly clean, dressed in a clean apron, the
dough was cut in pieces and put onto clean white mixing
beards and each child was given a clean white wooden potato
masher or rolling pin and the dough was beaten for hours.
Flora supervised the work and often turned the dough while
it was in the process of being beaten. Afterward it was
rolled, cut, and baked.
In December 1865 after Huetta and Almeda
had become engaged to Zenas and Alphonzo Wingate the bride
grooms-to-be were confronted with the problem of new wedding
suits for themselves. They discovered that there were no
suits to be bought, nor cloth to make them and their problem
was indeed perplexing. Flora Clarinda and her two daughters,
the two brides-elect held a council meeting and it was decided
that the girls should spin the yarn and Flora would dye
it and weave the cloth for the boys' wedding suits. The
work went forward rapidly and before the end of that month
the result of their labors was two fine men's suits made
of homemade jeans, all the work having been done by Flora
and the girls from the wool rolls which were carded at a
carding machine to the last finishing touch on the suits.
The two young couples were married at the
Washburn home January 5, 1866 on Alphonzo Wingate’s birthday.
He was nineteen years old on that day and Almeda was just
past sixteen years. Zenas was twenty-three and Huetta was nineteen
years old.This wedding was a big event. More than
two hundred guests were served at the wedding dinner. Flora
Clarinda had the supervision of the whole affair and was
assisted in the work by her family. The Wingate boys gave
a public dance in the evening and again refreshments were
served.
Thomas Bowles came from Nephi in a sleigh
and brought his family to be at the wedding. He had
planned to get a joke on the grooms and take the brides
for a sleigh ride as soon as the ceremony was over and leave
the grooms to receive the congratulations of the assembled
people.
So he brought his sleigh to the porch and
stood just inside the front door so he could be ready for
a dash to the sleigh. He had told the girls before hand
his plans and supposed. they would accept the plan which
he had laid, but they told their sweethearts and when the
girls started for the door a large man whom the boys had
appointed for the purpose put his arms around Thomas Bowles
while the newly weds got into the sleigh and drove away.
I [Lorena] was just about six years old
when this wedding occurred. I had never been to a dancing
party but was promised that I could go to my sister's wedding
dance, but I fell asleep early in the evening and did not
awaken until the next morning. My brother Orson, who, was
two years and nine months my junior had been to the dance
and told me what a wonderful time they had had. He said that there were three men sitting
on the stand with fine fiddles making beautiful music and
another man just standing there who was calling the dances.
When the Black Hawk War was on Flora did
a lot of cooking for the soldier boys who were camped in
the little fort just back of her place. All the people who
lived east of the Washburn place were advised to move onto
the same street for fear of an Indian raid. One day we saw
a company of horsemen coming around the point of Temple
Hill and the children of the neighborhood supposed they
were Indians. They ran to the Washburn home and Flora put
them into her large cellar, but she soon found out that
the horsemen were a scouting party.
On one occasion Abraham took the whole family
out to the saluratus beds, just south west of Manti, while
he got a load of that alkali which was used for soda and
for making soap when combined with lime. While he and the
boys were loading the wagon he discovered horsemen a mile
away and supposed they were Indians. In a minute he had
all the children in the wagon and made the oxen run all
the way into Manti. Again the horsemen proved to be only
a scouting party.
One night Flora Clarinda dreamed that her
old sweetheart, Hugh Gillon, came and begged her to be sealed
to him. She told him she could not as she was already sealed
to Abraham. He said he was going to ask the authorities
of the Church if it could be done. If it could, he would
let her know.
Three nights in succession Flora dreamed
that her stepmother came and asked her to do her temple
work and the third night she gave her promise that she would
and she never dreamed of her again.
Flora and her daughters hired Sister Crain,
who had braided straw for many years in England, to braid
straw for them and they made hats, mostly ladies’ hats and
sent them to all parts of Utah, they always found ready
sale for them.
The Washburn family moved from Manti to
Monroe in April 1872 and on November 30, 1872, Flora Clarinda
was chosen by Joseph A. Young, Stake President of Sevier
Stake, to preside over the first Relief Society in Monroe,
which was organized that day.
Monroe was a very new place then, some of
the people were from Springville, some from Fountain Green,
and quite a group from Utah's Dixie. Each group of people
were a little clannish, feeling that their group was a little
superior to the others. President Joseph A. Young seemed
to understand. this, for he called Flora to one side and
said, “You choose your officers, one from each group so
you will have harmony in this organization. His suggestion
was adopted with good results. About the same routine of work was adopted
in the Monroe Relief Society as had been carried out in
the Manti Society, but on a smaller scale.
There were no doctors in Monroe and as Flora
was a nurse, nearly everybody who became ill came to her
for advice and help, which she readily gave. She was called
and went out at all hours of the day and night to help people
in sickness and death, no matter what the sickness might
be.
When calls came on dark stormy nights, and
the people with sickness were living anywhere from an eighth
to a mile away, she would dress, put on her wraps and taking
up a cudgel which she had for dark night traveling, she
would go out walking the middle of the street. The stick
in her hand helped her to feel her way in the darkness and
would answer for a weapon of defense in case of necessity.
She not only cared for the sick but cared
for the dead and assisted in making their clothing, she
was a friend to the needy and a mother to the whole community,
often leaving her own sick children to the care of her husband.,
who was also a nurse, while she went out to help her neighbors
in their need.
Flora had a special method of helping the
poor. If there were able bodied men in the needy families
she, with her helpers, would look around to try to find
employment for them, and if they failed to find employment
for such individuals they would tell them they would lend
them the money and they could pay it back as soon as they
were able. She said it robbed people of their independence
to live on charity if they were able to work, that it was
better to lend means to them and let them keep their independence
and self respect.
While Flora was president of the Relief
Society hundreds of dollars were given to the worthy poor.
The Relief Society bought about sixty sheep which they let
out on shares to Alma Magleby. They with the help
of the Mutuals and Priesthood built the Relief Society Hall.
The Relief Society was to occupy the lower part, the Priesthood
the upper part, and the Mutuals had access to both parts.
When the Manti Temple was built the Monroe
Relief Society was called upon to furnish an all wool carpet
for one large room. The members did most of the spinning
and the wool having been made into rolls at the carding
machine at Manti, Flora dyed the yarn and wove the beautiful
carpet. Her son Orson took it to Manti and delivered
it to the Temple committee, though when Brother Maben saw
it, he wanted it to adorn his own home.
There was a little yarn left over which
was made into a rug about a yard long and two-thirds of
a yard wide which was in the Relief Society Treasury until
after Flora Clarinda's death when it was presented to Almeda
M. Wingate, her daughter.
Flora Clarinda presided over the Monroe
Relief Society for twenty-five years. She never made a charge
for any of her services to her towns people or others. She
devoted her life to the service of God and her fellow men.
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