The day my convert mother discovered that she did, in fact, have a Mormon relative who had moved to Utah, was an exciting day for her. It would have been a second cousin four times removed, but that didn't matter. My mother was thrilled to know that more family had followed in her footsteps - joined the Mormon church - and that she could visit their grave herself, just a short drive down the road.
We did visit the grave. I remember hunting for it in the Salt Lake City Cemetery, and being uninspired by it, as teenagers are apt to be, with their parents' dreams.
My mother traveled to another part of the state, where one of her relative's polygamist wives' dress was on display in a museum. (I wonder where I get my desire to "see and feel" the history that is dear and personal to me, from.)
That dress, though, told a story. That dress told a story that I only dared take in after leaving this church that I had been raised in, and that my mother and other family members for generations had sacrificed everything to join.
Can I tell you about Ann Winter?
Obviously this woman is stunning and no blood relative of mine. (I was related, DISTANTLY, to her second husband.)
William Miller, her first husband, joined the Mormon church in England, alongside his sister Eliza, in 1847. He was a bookbinder, a weaver, and a cobbler. Eventually he went on to marry Ann Winter on Christmas Day of 1854.
Decades later, having received financial aid from his sister and her husband, John Daynes, in Utah, the family departed Liverpool with 800 other converts on the "John Bright."
Family lore tells that Ann's mother, Victoria Bultitude Winter, was "very bitter toward the Saints and vowed she would not even bid the family goodbye, but, when they departed, forgetting their carefully prepared lunch basket in the flurry of last minute excitement, she ran to catch them, holding the basket in front of her. She stood waving her hand until the little family was out of sight. This was the last time that Ann saw her mother."
Ann had a beautiful singing voice, and was asked by the captain of the ship to sing in a concert he was giving. She sang four songs: "Sweet Spirit, Hear My Prayer," "Willie We Will Miss You," "Beautiful Star," and "Under the Mistletoe Bough."
When they arrived in the United States, William was asked to stand guard duty through the night, on the ship, while the company slept ashore.
Ann always believed that he had been met with foul play and was thrown in the harbor, due to other suspicious incidents that had occurred near her husband, during their voyage.
Ten days later Ann's fifteen month old baby died.
When Ann and the remainder of her family arrived in Utah they were deloused, and moved in with her sister-in-law and brother-in-law.
Not much more is told of Ann.
She married again, in 1870, on the day her second husband, William Henry Tremayne took both his third and fourth wives. Ann was married to him the same day that Elvina was, at the age of 33.
We know her children grew up - one of her daughters becoming a singer as well. We have some of their stories. But Ann's story ends rather abruptly, and without much detail, except for the dress.
The dress is in Pleasant Grove Utah, housed at the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers Museum.
The story goes thusly.
Ann went into town, had a dress fitting, and upon her return home, she fell in the river and drowned.
Was the river deep? It was thirteen inches deep, according to the most detailed report, which added the strange detail that she died with a bouquet of flowers in her hand. It reported that she had likely slipped into the river while picking flowers.
Thirteen inches is not very deep, and when drowning, we don't usually cling to our flowers.
