Elizabeth Hill

Born 22 September 1853 in Salt Lake City to Isaac Hill and Mary Jane Miller
Married Phineas Howland Cook 12 July 1869
Married Chriss Johnson
Elizabeth-William Alonzo-Dixie
Died 4 March 1936 in Huntington
Buried in Huntington

1860 Census
1870 Census 
1880 Census
1900 Census
1910  Census
1920 Census
1930 Census
 

This history seems to have been edited by different people at different times. This is everything I have been able to find. If you have a more complete copy, I would love to read it.

HISTORY OF ELIZABETH HILL JOHNSON
THE STORY OF MY LIFE
Typed by Stella Johnson McElprang
Excerpts by Geraldine Litster Walters

I was born in Salt Lake City, Utah September 22, 1853. My parents were Isaac Hill and Mary Jane Miller Hill. I was one of 19 children, my father having been married three times before he married my mother.

 At the time of my birth my father was 1st counselor to the Bishop in the Ward in Salt Lake City. This office he held for three years and then was ordained to the Bishop of this ward, a position he held for ten years.

 I was about 3 years old at the time of the terrible cricket plague in Salt Lake City. Nearly all the crops were destroyed including my Father’s. Brigham Young had some flour stored up and the next summer he hired my mother and some other women who had no flour to pull the mustard weeds out of his wheat so we had a little flour which we used sparingly. One day mother and I were walking down one of the streets and we saw a piece of bread lying on the ground. Mother would have passed it by but I cried so hard for it she let me pick it up and eat it. Never in my life have I ever tasted anything so good.

 When I was about seven years old I had typhoid fever and hovered between life and death for about six weeks, but was finally healed by the power of the Lord through a priesthood blessing.

 One night while my parents were to a meeting and I was in charge of the smaller children my brother Isaac took ill. I didn’t know what to do so decided to take him to mother. I hunted for something to wrap him in but could not find anything to wrap his head in. Mother had hung washing out on the line so I found an old sunbonnet. I put this on him and went to the meeting. I guess we looked kind of amusing and the people laughed so. But mother was embarrassed and I got a whipping for it when we got home.

 One day my sister Sarah was showing her girl friend some quilt blocks. Suddenly her friend grabbed one and ran with it. Sarah handed me the rest of the blocks and took off after her, then called for me to help her. I had to pass the woodpile and I saw my brother Isaac standing there. I handed the quilt blocks to him and told him to take them into the house. Just then he vanished into thin air. I called Sarah and she came running and I told her what I had seen. As we stood there nearly petrified a boy came by racing upon his horse and told us Isaac had just been run over with a roller and they thought he was dead. We hurried to the ranch and we saw him unconscious. Father and mother came and he was administered to and he regained consciousness. He fully recovered.

 (She tells of many hardships that they suffered when her family moved to Fish Haven, Bear Lake Valley).

 One winter all families ran out of brooms. We made brooms out of birch willows from the lake area. I discovered a better way to make them than we had been and I received one dollar and cents apiece for mine.

 I married Phineas Wolcot Cook on July 12, 1869 in the old Endowment House in Salt Lake City. We lived in St. Charles and Fish Haven. I had three children and was pregnant. My husband was accidentally shot and killed instantly. He was riding on a hayrack going for a load of hay. He had just shot a duck with his father’s gun, sat the stock of the gun on the crosspiece of the wagon and the muzzle of the gun over his shoulder. The wheel of the wagon ran over a rock and the gun slipped, was discharged and he was shot in the heart and killed instantly. This was a terrible blow to me. Three months later my son was born, I had the other three small children to care for, and it was about more than I could bear.

 The night before my husband was killed he had gone to bed but after about an hour he came into the room where my mother and I were carding and spinning. He said he had had such a peculiar dream. He said he thought he was in an old ancient city and an old man came to him. “This old man wore long a flowing white beard and long white hair. He wore long white garments reaching down to his feet and around his waist was a cord and to this cord was fastened a large bunch of keys. He unfastened these keys and handed them to me saying, ‘Here, take these keys,’ and turning he pointed to a long row of dugouts and said, ‘Take these keys and unlock the doors to those prisons and go in and preach the gospel to those who are waiting for you in there.’” He then woke up and got dressed. He said he had such a strange feeling that he felt sure his dream had some meaning. The next day he was accidentally killed.

 I grieved a great deal over my husband’s death and just couldn’t seem to be reconciled to my loss until one night I, too, had a dream. This night I was at his father’s house and his brothers were sitting around the ñreplace playing on their musical instruments and singing. (The Cook brothers were all musicians.) I felt they were very hard-hearted and wondered how they could play and sing like they were doing when they knew my heart was breaking. When I could stand it no longer I picked up my baby Ann and went into another room, this was a bedroom, and flung myself on my bed crying as if my heart would break. I must have fallen asleep and it must have been a dream I had, at any rate I know I saw my husband as plain as I ever saw him when he was alive. He came to the bed and said to me, “Lizzie, don’t you know the Bible tells us that we must not covet other people’s property and you are doing worse than that. You are coveting that which belongs to the Lord. Now you must stop grieving over me as you are doing wrong, as I am needed on the other side more than I am needed here on the earth.” He then gave me one long loving look and he was gone. Immediately I was awake. From then on it seemed like that heavy weight that was hanging over me was lifted and it was not so hard for me to reconcile myself to my loss.

 On August 3, 1879 I was married to Ole Chriss Johnson. (She tells of many of the hard winter times they had as she had witnessed the hard times her parents had had living in Fish Haven, Idaho.) My husband was a cattleman but lost most of his cattle to the weather. But he was a very hard worker and did all he could to provide for our growing family. He was a good fisherman, also a peddler and took regular trips to Swan Creek and Camas with the fish he caught. He also took butter, eggs and vegetables of all kinds.

 After living there for years we moved to Huntington, Utah. Our first home there was a house on a lot we bought. Then we bought a farm and built a one log room and a dugout and moved there. Later we bought another lot and built a log house and dug a cellar beside it with a holding room over the cellar and joining on to the other log room. In this house a daughter Ida Viola was born, January 22, 1886.

 Some of our enterprises, as well as farming and cattle raising, were raising alot of sugar cane, running a molasses mill, joining with others to run a grist mill, starting the “Huntington Cooperative Mercantile Institution” of which my husband later became president, and going into the bee industry.

We moved several times and I continued to garden and raise all our own garden stuff and raised a lot of fruit and canned and bottled much of this for our own use. We also raised our own meat. We had a lot of soap grease and I made our own soap.

 I was asked by the Bishop to accept the office of President of the Relief Society, but as I had always had such fear of speaking in public I was afraid I would not be capable of holding this position and told the Bishop so. So instead he asked me to be on the Building Committee to raise money to build the Relief Society hall. I worked hard. We put on theaters, dances, sold ice cream and cake at these dance, gathered Sunday eggs and did everything we could possibly think of to make an honest dollar.

One fourth of July while “Pa” and I were milking cows our prankster son Ray slipped a lighted firecracker under the cow I was milking. The cow kicked the bucket over and spilled the milk and left me sitting in the middle of the corral without any cow to milk. But when another one went off under “Pa’s” cow she kicked the bucket with such force that it lit upside down on his head giving him a shower bath of milk.

 I was able to make one trip back to Fish Haven and see a wonderful aunt of mine. She was my first husband’s father’s favorite wife of the three that he had. She was one of my dearest friends. When I saw her she was lying on her deathbed. She knew me though and was surely glad to see me and did not want me to leave her bedside. l had the privilege of being with her and holding her hand at the time of her death and also attended her funeral.

 On the night of February 25, 1934 l had a paralytic stroke. This was the fourth stroke of this kind I had had. My speech entirely was lost and it was over a week before I was able to speak again. I never did recover from this stroke.
 
Elizabeth Hill Cook Johnson died March 4, 1934 in Huntington, Emery County, Utah.