Lucy Augusta Rice Clark, my great grandmother
History given by Laraine W Huff January 2020
Born in Farmington, Davis County, Utah on March 5 1850, my great grandmother, Lucy Augusta Rice was a Native Pioneer, having been born before the railroad was completed in May of 1869.
She was the 3rd child of 12 children of William Kelsey Rice and Lucy Witter Geer. Both of Lucy’s parents joined the Church with family before they met and married.
Her father was actually born in Palmyra New York and his family was acquainted with the Smith family before Joseph had his 1st Vision. However, when William was 4 years old they moved to Michigan and it was there that his family joined the church in 1840 and moved to Nauvoo in 1842.
Lucy’s mother was born in Ohio. Her family joined the Church when Lucy was 8 years old and later Lucy left her family and moved to Nauvoo where William Kelsey Rice and Lucy Witter Geer were married in 1845.
William and Lucy took their young family and left Nauvoo with the Saints in February of 1846 and finally arrived in the Salt Lake Valley in September of 1847.
It was in Farmington where Lucy Augusta Rice met Timothy Baldwin Clark and they were married in the Endowment House on November 23 1867 when Lucy was still 17 years old
Timmy, as he was called, and Lucy had 11 children. My grandmother, Lucy Evaline Clark, my father’s mother, was their 2nd child. Three of their first five children died as babies. (It is interesting to note that my grandparents also lost three of their first five children to death as babies. My father, Cleon James Wilcox, was their 5th child but only the 2nd to live past a few months.)
Lucy grew up in Farmington and knew the hardships of pioneer life. She was filled with energy, ambition, industry, and charity. She wove flax it into cloth, coloring it with dye made from roots, barks and fruit. She sheared sheep for wool and made clothing for men, women and children. She saved animal fat and made her own soap and candles. For a short while she also raised silkworms.
Her mother was a teacher and had a small private school. Lucy was one of her students and when she was only 8 years of age she became her mother’s assistant teacher. She became a teacher on her own at age 16 in the village school and taught until her marriage to Timothy B Clark. Timmy had been one of her mother’s students and his brother, Joseph, later recalled that the people of the area thought that Timothy had married “the smartest woman in town”.
Education was very important to Lucy and she did whatever she could to allow her children to attend college. Six of her 8 living children attend university and qualified as teachers.
Lucy was very active in Church. In 1878 when Aurelia Spencer Rogers organized the first Primary in Farmington, Lucy A Clark was made her 2nd counselor. She later became the first President of the YLMIA.
Lucy had a knitting machine and knitted and sold hundreds of socks to the stores in Salt Lake. She was also an agent for the Buddington System of Drafting Patterns and was very successful at this. She traveled over, Utah, Idaho, Nevada, and Wyoming. Using the pattern maker she made clothing for women and children. The pattern machines cost $3.00, and when she sold them she taught her customers how to use them so they could make clothing for their own families.
Her daughter, Eva, (my grandmother) traveled with her and Eva not only helped Lucy draft the patterns and cut the dresses, but she also cared for the horse which pulled the buggy in which they traveled.
Because she was so successful in selling the machine the Buddington Company gave her two tickets to the World Columbian Exposition in Chicago in 1891. Lucy said, “In one month I sold 48 and taught everyone thoroughly, and sold 864 in one year.
In 1897 she was appointed “postmistress” at Farmington Utah and she held that position for 7 years.
She was involved in the Women’s Suffrage Association as Vice President of the State Association and President of the county Association. The Womens Suffrage of Utah was 2nd in the Nation. New York was the only state with a greater membership. Lucy wrote a song which was sung at the Farmington Convention on December 5, 1894 entitled “New America”.
She was a talented writer. She wrote poems and songs. One of her best known songs was published by the Church and included in the old green Primary Children’s Songbook. It was entitled “God Bless the Children”.
Lucy was also very active in Civic and Political affairs. In 1908 she was sent to Chicago as a delegate to the Republican Convention. When she was asked what her profession was she answered, “I have been a mother”. She had taken photographs of her 8 living children with her to the Convention.
During WWI she learned that there was a contest by “LIFE” magazine with a prize of $500 for the best original song. She wrote the words for the song which she entitled “The American Army song”, a prayer for the success of the American Army. She was 2 days late to enter the contest but the words were sent to the Army camps by Dr Widstoe, who purchased 600 copies, one for each of the university students enlisted in the War. Professor Evan Stevens and Professor Tracy Cannon set the words to music but it was first sung June 20 1917 at a patriotic meeting to the tune of “The Battle Hymn of the Republic”.
While living in Garland, Utah, Lucy served on the Board of Governors and was instrumental in obtaining money from Andrew Carnegie for a community library.
In 1912 she moved to Salt Lake City where she was an associate delegate to the Worlds Genealogical Convention in San Francisco in July of 1915. She had traced her ancestry back 38 generations.
In 1914 she was a Utah delegate to the International Congress of Farm Women held in Wichita Kansas.
In 1899 Lucy received a patriarchal blessing from her father-in-law, Patriarch Ezra T Clark. She was told in her blessing. “…the Lord has had His hand over thee from thy birth and thou has been instrumental in His hands in doing good….I say therefore be blessed that thy tongue may be loosed, that thou mayest seek even the blessings of the gospel that you may have the power to administer to the sick and to do any work necessary to the accomplishment of His purposes upon the earth as one whom the Lord has chosen to be useful in thy day and generation.”
Lucy & Timothy had very different personalities and they divorced in the early 1900’s. Lucy passed away on November 13 1928 in Salt Lake City, Utah. On February 13 1904, president Joseph F Smith cancelled their sealing. But a month after Lucy’s death on December 10 1928, President Heber J Grant reinstated the sealing. She had told her children that she wanted to be resealed to her husband.
The last words she said before she died were, “Timmy, I’m coming.” The children with her thought that she could see Timmy waiting for her.
