Daughter of Edmond Durfee and Lanna Pickle
Wife of Albert Miner, Enos Curtis, John White Curtis
Mother to
Edmond Durfee
Polly Miner
Orson Miner
Moroni Miner
Sylvia Miner
Mormon Miner
Matilda Miner
Alma Lindsey Miner
Don Carlos Smith Miner
Melissa Miner
Enos Curtis
Clarissa Curtis
Belinda Curtis
Amelia Curtis (twin)
Adelia Curtis (twin)
John White Curtis (son of Enos Curtis)
Mariette Curtis
Personal History of Tamma Durfee Miner Curtis
Copied from History by Berl B. Cook
Re-typed by Kierston Scott
Tamma Durfee, the daughter of Edmond Durfee and Lanna Pickle, was born in Lenox, Madison County, New York on the 6 March 1813. In traceing her genealogy it is found that she is of German decent through Palatine Emigration of the early eighteenth century.
She wrote her own account of her life while she was yet living, and it was placed along with other papers and accounts of others, and it was preserved for her postairty of later generations. It was placed in the corner stone of a building in Provo, Utah.
She lived with her parents in Lenox untill she was 9 years old, then he(r) father moved to a new county in a town called Amboy. Here he bought some land and built a home in June 1830. He then bought some more land with maple trees on it and made maple sugar. But her father had a great urge to go west, so he sold everything and started for the state of Ohio. They passed through a village called Cameden; went on the canal to Buffalo, and settled in Huron county, in a town called Bugle. Her father bought land and commenced to build another home.
The following winter of 1830 they first heard about the mormons and the gold bible; which was not a very favorable report. One year later Solomon Hancock, a missionary, came preaching about Joseph Smith; that the Lord and the Angel Maroni had been revealed to him. Elder Hancock joined with the people in the Methodist and Campbelite meetings and they gave him a chance to speak. They were all astonished at what he told them, for it was a much different story from what they had been reported about Joseph and the Mormons.
On teh 15 May 1831 her father was baptized and on the 1 June 1831 her mother was baptized. About the 1 June 1831 her sister Martha was baptized and her brother Edmond J. was baptised soon after on the 4 June 1831. Tamma believed the gospel was true the first time she heard Elder Hancock preach and she told them the Book of Mormon was true, but she did not join because she was going with a good young man by the name of Albert Miner and she had herd that he had said he wouldn’t have a Mormon girl for a wife. For that reason she deceided to wait untill she was married before she joined the church. They were married on the 9 August 1831 and then they sometimes attended the Mormon meetings and sometimes they attended the Methodists. That way they got along all right, but the following December her father was going on a mission and he wanted her to be baptized before he went, so he baptized her.
Her husband’s brothers and sisters were very bitter and had a great deal to say about the Mormons, as they did not believe the Book of Mormon. So Albert told them that the more they had to say about it the sooner he would be baptized. He waited untill the 1 February 1832 then they cut a hole in the ice and baptized him.
When her father returned from his mission in the fall of 1832, her husband sold their farm with all their possessions and joined her farther and the(y) all went to Kirkland, ohio. The Lord had said He would keep a strong hold in Kirtland for five years so they bought a farm and built their homes and prepared to live there for a while. She was there in Kirtland on the 4 July when they were going to lay the corner stones to the temple. They ordained George A. Smith and Don Smith to make the 24 Elders they needed for the the six men to each corner. Her husband Albert helped haul stone every saturday fora long time to build the temple. The next spring a call came for volunteers to go and redeem Jackson County, Missouri and most of the Elders volunteered. Her husband and Dennis Lake drew cuts to see who should go and who should stay at home to take care of both of their families. Dennis was the one to go and upon his return home he apostatized and sued Joseph Smith for three months work amounting to $60.00. Brigham Young and another man went to the Miner home where Dennis Lake was and asked him for his license, but Mr. Lake refused to give it up so Brigham Young said it didn’t make any diference because they could publish him as an apostate anyway. Then Brigham Young told Albert Miner that he would receive his blessings just as though he had gone instead of Dennis Lake.
The building of the temple continued and some of the Brethern that came from a distance stayed with the Miner family untill the next spring and received their endowments. They were there for the dedication of the temple in March 1836.
After a good many began to apostatize and broke up the Kirkland Bank, a great many things transpired that Tamma Durfee didn’t have time to write in her history. Land come up in price and it sold for large sums of money. There was great speculation and a great many people left the church of the Latter Day Saints. In the midst of all those events her baby was born.
The men that were at liberty and had teams had to help others to the Mississippi River and then go back after their own families. Her husband was one of those that took other families to the river so they did not get away untill the 1 April. They witnessed a great many saints leaving in the cold and dreary winter. They crossed over to Quincy and went up to a place called Lima, Hancock County, Illinois and stayed there for more than a year and got along the best they could.
Every fall and spring they had to go thirty miles to conferances and on the 4 July to training. Then they sold their property and bought a place four miles east of the Nauvoo temple and they lived there where they could go to meetings and return home each night.
Tamma and her husband was there when the prophet Joseph and his brother Hyrum were martyred and she went to see their bodies after they were taken to their homes. SHe had been aquainted with them 12 years and had helped them both preach and talk to the saints for five hours with out any one becoming tired of hearing them. That was in Kirtland before they built the first temple.
While they still lived in Nauvoo the Gentiles and moberats threatened the people and told around how they would kill and drive the Mormons. They did kill and drive them from Lima and they shot and killed her father instantly on the 9 November 1845, he who never did them any harm in his life. This is the story of how it came about; The mob turned them out of their homes sick or well and drove them all out to live or die. They rolled her brother Nephi up in a bed and threw it out doors while he was sick in bed, then they got some straw oat and set it afire and threw it upon the roof of the house and told them that they would return the next morning. Her father was trying to go to another place when the mob returned and shot off their guns and ran the saints out. They plundered and burned the houses, furniture, clothing, looms, yarn, cloth, carpenter tools, and everything that would burn was turned to ashes. It made no difference if the people were sick or well they were driven out and their homes burned untill every home that belonged to a Mormon was burned, in town. The mob told them they would be back to gather the crops that the saints had worked so hard to grow. When it was dark on Saturday night the mob built a fire close to the barn and stable and the Mormons thought they ment to burn their horses. They ran out to put the fire out and the mob stood back in the timber out of the fire light and as the men run between the mob and the fire light the mob shot off a dozen guns and that was when her father got killed and the only one that was killed during that night raid. When news reached Nauvoo the men got their teams & traveled all night to get to Lima. Her Husb. was one who traveled night & day to go to their help, got cold & took fever was sick.
The mobs still kept gathering all fall and winter and threatening the saints, but continuted to work hard all winter geting endowments and sealing and doing work for their dead. Some of the saints crossed the river ice before it broke up and others left soon afterwards. Tamma and her husband was turned out of their house with their family of little children, and their house was sold from under them, so they rented a place because they were to remain in Nauvoo for a time. The mobs continued to gather every little while, threatening all the time how they would drive the Mormons.
At last a great many left not knowing where they were going; to hunt a place in teh wilderness amoung the savage and wild beast, over the desert and beyond to the Rocky Mountains, where few white men had ever been nor any lived.
In the spring the mobs began to get together once a week to threaten to drive those that were left. They gathered close to the home where the Miners were living on public square.
The saints were trying to go as fast as they could get ready and get teams to go with. The church leaders did not want all the men folks leaving the settlements of the Latter Day Saints for fear of what might happen from the mobs, so they stayed and her older brother and his family was with them, untill at least new citizens and apostates carried the day. When the families were crossing the river her husband had to ferry across five times for her brother’s family and five times for his own family. Her brother was wounded from the attack of the mob and he was unable to help much. THey were all finally on the tother side and they stayed there for two weeks waiting for help. ALl that time they slept on the ground. There were fourteen Saints to one wagon. When they got started her baby took sick and in three days her baby died at the age of seven months old.
They stopped at Iowaville and stayed there through the winter. When her baby died she took sick and never sat up for nine months. Her husband was going to move to Council Bluffs, but a good many Saints came back to get work so he put up some hay for his stock and deceided to go back to Ohio to see all his folks. He started a foot to the Mississippi River all alone and with very little money. He went to or three miles then he looked down on the ground and right before him he seen &5.00 in Sliver money. He went on to ohio and found his folks all well, but they would not believe the Gospel. Not one of them would listen to anything he had to say about Mormonism. They offered him everything in this worlds goods if he would stay with them and not go with the Mormons, but the gospel and the truth of the Book of Mormon and the Holy Priesthood meant more to him, than all the worldly riches could mean to him.
He was gone ten weeks and came home very tired and not feeling very well. He had walked in the rain all day. We thought he would feel better after he was rested, but he grew worse. He was very weak and he tried to work a half a day then go to bed the other half. He was first better and then he would get worse untill all of a sudden he passed away. That was a hard blow to his wife and family because they thought he was getting better. His wife and children thought there was not a better man that lived. He had been so kind and pleasant and had a very generious nature and had won many friends with his kind ways. He was a very capable man and he could do anything he saw anyone else do.
Alma, the oldest and the other little boys asked their mother which way they should go because they felt lost with out their father and wasn’t sure of the way. They thought their father was perfect, that he couldn’t do anything wrong and that he knew everything. Orson and Polley were the oldest. They had to take the lead and go ahead an plan because their mother was still sick. They were true and faithful children to their mother.
Her husband had been very anxious to go to Council Bluffs, so they stayed there about two years. They worked to get things ready for the long trip to the Valleys of the Mountains.
SHe started with her seven children; five boys and two girls and they were wit ha company of 100 wagons on the 10 Jun3 1850. THey traveled across the plains with Ox tams, and had a hard struggle but got along much better than they had anticipated.
The 1st of September 1850 they arrived in Salt Lake CIty without a home or any one to build one for them. A widow with seven (6) children was quite a responsibility. They stayed with Mr. and Mrs. Wilcox for two weeks then Enos Curtis came and said he would furnish her and her children with a home if she would marry him. That was what she needed most because winter was coming on so they were married 20 October 1850.
THey lived on the Jordan that first winter and Tamma and her children all had irricipilees in their throat. Her eldest son Orson died with it; he who had been so faithful and drove the team across the plain for his mother. There wasn’t a kinder or better natured boy ever lived.
The next April they moved to Springville and got a farm and place to build and got along very well. They had gone into the wilderness trying to build up the kingdom of God. On the 18 October 1851 Tamma had a baby girl born and they named her Clarissa. In the spring of 1854 her husband Enos went to Iron County, Utah, with Brigham Young and his company. They got back the 12 June 1854. One year from then Tamma had twin girls and they named them Adelia and Amelia.
Two years later her husband Enos died on 1 June 1856. He passed away like going to sleep. Tamma had passed through all the hardships, drivings, burnings, mobing, threatenings and had been with the Saints in all their persecutions from Huron County to Kirtland, to Missouri, from Missouri to Illinois and then across the Deseret.
She wrote a history of which this is a part copy of and left it to her children so that they might have a little idea of what their parents passed through. For want of time she passed over some things of importance. Her hope was that her children would all prove faithful, that they might all receive a great reward.
Tamma Durfee Miner Curtis, passed from this life at the age of seventy years of age, having had eight children by her first husband and 4 children by the second husband. She had 95 grandchildren and 17 great grandchildren up to the writing of this history.
She live a life of virture and unflinching intergrity as well as by her many excellent traits of character, she endeared herself to all who knew her. She died as she had lived: In full faith of the Gospel.
No comments:
Post a Comment