Annie Rebecca Seward and Elizabeth Ann Lee Bracken

Photo: William Henry Kennington and wife, Annie Rebecca Seward Kennington. Date unknown.
Source: One of the Bracken grandsons found this photo in his mother's things. He was a retired railroader when we (Kathy) met him in Green River, Wyo. in the 1970's and then again in Utah a few years later where we were in the same ward. He gave us the photo in about 1980. He assumed it had been given to his parents by the Kenningtons.
I enhanced the color a bit when downloading it for this blog but did not photoshop the marks out of it.
While not the most flattering photo of Annie Rebecca, it does show her petite size, her hair slicked back with the perfumed chicken oil and a certain weariness which comes from everyday life. Their clothes reflect their situation in life - homesteading in a new area without the luxury of stores, etc.
The fact that Mr. Bracken's parents had the photo in their things indicates to me a cordial relationship within the family (William Henry Kennington was their step father ).

Note: Take the following article with a note of caution. It's written from the viewpoint of grandaughters recalling what they remembered of their grandmother's life.
Actually, Annie's mother married Joseph or Josiah Kimber in England and they all emigrated. Unfortunately Kimber does not show up on the Emigrant Schedule with Annie and her mother. To complicate the picture further, her mother is not listed as Kimber on the schedule but as Seward. Further research needs to be done to find out why. Maybe he was herding cattle across or driving oxen with another unrecorded group.
Joseph died of asthma in Tooele shortly after Annie and William were married in 1865. His death notice is in the Millenial Star.
He was a widower before he married Annie's mother and more work needs done for his wife and children. Joseph served as a branch president in England and introduced Melvin J. Ballard's father to the gospel when he was a young man working on the same farm. He needs far more credit than has been given him. We'll put his history out there soon.

There is also an Annie Rebecca Seward history supposedly written by her located in the DUP Archives. Take that with a grain of salt. I believe it was written for some play or program in the first person, but by one of the granddaughters. The wording seems uncharacteristically casual for her. Perhaps someone knows a little about the article and could fill us in.
Thanks - Kathy



A HISTORY OF ANNIE REBECCA KENNINGTON,
According to her children, her daughters-in-law Isabell and Ida, and granddaughters Esther Crook and Jenny Gardner


Annie Rebecca Seward was born August 22, 1841, at Newberry, Berkshire, England. She was the only child of George and Esther Sarah Frewin Seward.

Her father was a “Wheel Wright,” whose occupation is to make or repair wheels and wheeled vehicles. He died when Annie was very young.

While Annie’s mother went out to work as a governess, Annie stayed with her rich aunts Gussie and Rebecca. They taught Annie music lessons on the piano, and for one term at least she was sent to a girl’s school in France. When she started school she went continually for 14 years and then she was through.

When Annie was a young lady some LDS missionaries converted her and her mother to the Mormon Church and they decided to come to America.

The rich aunts gave a little farewell party for them. Annie’s friends gave her 17 little tea aprons and two sets of salt shakers. (Maud K. Ranzenberg, a granddaughter, is the proud possessor of said salt shakers now.) These aprons weren’t much protection coming across the plains, but they were used to trim many hats in Utah, Idaho, and Wyoming later on.

After a long ocean voyage Annie and her mother landed in Halifax, Canada, and then took a train to Council Bluffs, Iowa (this was during the Civil War). Here they met William Henry Kennington and rode to Utah in his wagon which was pulled by an ox team. They were in the Rosel Hyde Company and got to Utah October 13, 1863.

They settled in Tooele, Utah, where Annie went to work for Bishop Roeberry as a hired girl. It wasn’t too pleasant here because Mrs. Roeberry was very suspicious of Annie. She thought maybe her husband wanted Annie for his second wife.

On April 1, 1865, Annie married William Henry Kennington in the Endowment House in Salt Lake City. (See her husband’s history for story of her family life.)

On October 26, 1879, the first Primary in Liberty, Idaho, was organized. Annie Seward Kennington was made President and served until January 11, 1889. Her mother was her first counselor.’’ Sara Austin of Liberty, Idaho, says of Annie, “She was a very humble, kind, unassuming woman who would not knowingly injure the character of any person. She always tried to learn the motives that prompted a misdeed. If she thought a person had any ill will toward her, she couldn’t rest until she talked with that person and everything was understood and peace again reigned.
“When her finances were low (which was often) she refrained from complaining and being resourceful would find a remedy. Many times she made shoes from heavy duck or canvas for her children.
“She had a keen sense of humor which may be verified by the following incident: She and her husband-to-be were coming to Utah with other emigrants. They were fording the Green River when the stream swerved their team and wagon out of the regular path and they were going down stream. William jumped from the wagon and swam ashore (possibly to get help). Another young man, seeing the young bride-to-be going rapidly down stream plunged in on his horse and rescued her. When they reached the bank, she laughingly remarked that “Will tried to get rid of me but couldn’t.”

She was a good penman and thorough in her secretarial work in the Liberty Relief Society.

William and the boys built a house for Annie before she moved to Star Valley. It consisted of two rooms and still stands in Afton. The boys hauled shingles from Montpelier for it.

Annie was the first Star Valley Stake Primary President. Alice J. Call was her first counselor. When Alice J. Call was called to the Star Valley Stake Relief Society Board, she chose Annie to be counselor to her.

Annie had a little black buggy and a nice horse called Nell to take her visiting around the stake. In winter she traveled by team and sleigh and usually one of the boys drove for her.

Jenny Gardner says: “Grandmother wasn’t much of a horsewoman. If Old Nell hadn’t gone along the way she was supposed to, like as not Grandmother wouldn’t have got to all her meetings. One time she went somewhere with the team and wagon. She couldn’t turn around so she cramped the wagon, tied the lines to the spring seat and walked home.”

Alonzo says: “Once George and I had to use the good harnesses for work in the canyon so we put the old harness on the team for mother, Alice Call and Mary Gardner. They were going to visit the Relief Society in Dry Creek or somewhere. There was only one line on the old harness so Gov and I got a long piece of bed cord and tied it on for the other line. We tied the team to the fence and slipped off to the canyon.

“When we got home I don’t believe I ever saw mother so mad. She said, ‘That old harness, and to think that Alice and Mary were riding with me, too.’”

Annie, Mary Gardner, and Johanna Cook were very good friends. They spent one afternoon a week with each other. This afternoon they visited Wilhelmina Limberg Cook, daughter-in-law of Johanna Cook. This day they were served home-made root beer with a raisin in each bottle. That afternoon Annie, Mary and Johanna didn’t remember getting home. Jenny and Esther laughed and laughed and kept it a secret for 40 years.

During the first Uinta County Fair held in Star Valley (1908), Annie fell down the stairs in the old school house and broke several ribs. She had been upstairs to see the art exhibit.

She felt very badly when William married again. She didn’t dislike Elizabeth Ann---she just hated to share him with another woman. But Annie and Elizabeth Ann got along very well. They took care of each other in times of sickness.

William had supper, breakfast and dinner with one family, and spent the night. Then he had the next three meals and spent the night with the other family. The best food was always saved to eat when William was with them.

Annie was small. Her average weight was 100 pounds. She was sociable and always visited her neighbors and the sick. She parted her hair in the middle and kept it in place with perfumed chicken oil.

When she milked the family cow, she took a pie tin with salt in it. Then she just had to call the cow, who came a’bucking to get the salt and be milked. She didn’t take to sewing. If she was making an apron and it had any little extra fancy pieces she would say, “Well, we don’t need that,” and she would throw it away.

When her oldest daughter, Annie Esther Kennington Matthews, died and left a new baby, she took it and raised it. The baby is Sarah Esther Matthews Crook of Fairview, Wyoming.

William’s brother Richard lived with William and Annie for many years.

Annie taught school in Ovid, Idaho and Afton, Wyoming. She taught during the summer with Martha Barrus in a two-room log school house in Afton.

The following is taken from the paper when Annie died in Afton, Wyoming, November 19, 1916:

“After a long and useful life she died as she lived---honored, trusted, and loved. She reared her own monument while she lived in the hearts of all who knew her. Her life was completed, her work all done and well done, constitutes completion. Her life in her church work, was beautiful, and through all the vicissitudes and sorrows that she met on the way, her faith in God never wavered. She was very fond of children and was a great and active worker in the Primary.




A HISTORY OF ELIZABETH ANN LEE BRACKEN KENNINGTON,
Second Wife of William Henry Kennington, as told by her sons Ira and Albert Kennington

Elizabeth Ann Lee was the daughter of Isaac Lee and Julia Ann Chapman. She was born on November 20, 1848 at Nauvoo, Illinois. Her parents were moving westward toward Utah with the Saints. They had three little daughters, Maryetta, Elizabeth Ann and Eliza Ann.

Early in the summer this family started for Utah. It was 1852. They were out on the plains of Nebraska a few days travel when Julia Ann Chapman passed away. This happened on July 10, 1852, at Loup Fork Camp, which is on a branch of the Platte River.

Grandmother’s death left grandfather with three small daughters, and Elizabeth Ann was a few months less than four years old.

We are of the opinion that this group of emigrants were using mostly handcarts; probably some oxen and some mules were also used. (The organized hand cart companies came across the plains in 1856.)

They arrived in Utah in the fall of 1852 and settled in Tooele where her father operated a saw mill and a shingle mill.

Elizabeth grew up to womanhood in Tooele where she attended the schools that were available and the church organizations of the ward in which she took part.

She also learned the domestic arts and sciences as she was very skilled in cooking of all kinds, knitting and crocheting. She was very often asked to assist in nursing when new babies were born in town, also to help make clothing for the dead, etc.

Elizabeth Ann married Aaron Bracken in Tooele, Utah in 1866. Their first two children, Mariette and Aaron Franklin, were born in Tooele.

In 1870 this young couple with several other young couples moved to Liberty, Idaho, where there were more opportunities to make a good living.

Here at Liberty their next two children were born, Isaac and Hannah Bell, but sorrow came to their home as their two baby girls had to leave in death, and on July 12, 1874, her husband died from injuries received a few days previous while logging in the canyon.

It would seem that the Lord was unkind to this woman, with all the hardships of her childhood and early life and in a new and unsettled country. She was separated from her children and companion, left alone with no home and no money, with two children, but she never for one moment lost faith in the Lord or the truthfulness of the Gospel which she loved and worked so hard for.

Now she married William Henry Kennington as his second wife.

Upon the arrival of her family into Star Valley, their home was a two room log house on William’s homestead on the south side of the canal about midway between the east and west lines on the north side of the homestead.

All the furniture she had was what William had made excepting the little iron stove which had four lids and a small oven.

She and her family lived here until about 1896 when William built the new house on lot 4 of block 27 of Afton. Most of the lumber for this house was furnished by Thomas Simpson, an emigrant from England whom William helped considerably when he came to Star Valley.

It was a rule in the home of Elizabeth Ann that at no time and no matter what the conditions, should anyone go away hungry---and no one ever did. She was a wonderful cook. She had to be to prepare food when so little was to be had (sometimes) for the hungry stalwart boys she had in her family.

She was a faithful worker in the Relief Society as a counselor to Harriet Cazier, who was the first Relief Society President in Afton. She had scores of quilting bees and rag carpet-making group bees and rag carpet-making groups in her home for the benefit of those needing assistance.

Albert Kennington tells this story about little Alfred: “Alfred was a little boy running barefooted up and down the garden irrigation ditches when something stung him on the instep. Father at once sent for Connie Eggleston who said she had to have some medicine from the drug store in Montpelier. Frank Bracken, half brother to Alfred, borrowed a little wild black mare from Eggleston’s and rode to Montpelier in five hours (45 miles away), got the medicine and rode back in seven hours on the same more. Alfred died before Frank was out of sight, but there was no way of stopping him.” They never did find out what bit or stung him. He was the first one buried in Afton.

Elizabeth Ann had a most generous and loving nature, a keen sense of honor and enjoyed a good joke. “A good laugh is as beneficial as a good meal,” she always said.

Hers was a never-ending life of assistance in times of need, sickness or any other occasion. A true and faithful Latter-day Saint, one of the best mothers and grandmothers who was ever permitted to fulfill that calling.

After an illness of about three years, she passed from this life of cares and labor June 8, 1913, at Afton, Wyoming, being in her 66th year.