BIRTHDATE: 5 Apr 1834

Steuben County, Indiana

DEATH: 20 Mar 1917

Thatcher, Graham, Arizona

PARENTS: James William

Huntsman

Hannah Davis Huntsman

PIONEER: 1851

Wagon Train

SPOUSE: Samuel Lewis

MARRED: 1 Jan 1854

Parowan, Iron County, Utah

DEATH: 31 Aug 1911

Phoenix, Arizona

CHILDREN:

Samuel Edward. 17 Jul 1 854

Orson James. 18 Dec 1 8ss

Keturah Hannah. ~5 Sep 1857

Mary Ellen. 9 Mar 1859

Oliver. ~ Mar 1861

Adelbert 17 Nov 1863

Laura 16 Jan 1865

Malinda Gimlin, 10 Sep 1866

Joseph Tarleton, 30 Jun 186

Sarah Levira, 16 Jan 1870

Lula Jane, 22 Apr 1873

Bertha Maria, 5 Apr I875

Sarah Jane Huntsman Lewis was born in Indiana. The Huntsman family moved to Nauvoo in 1840 when Sarah Jane was six years of age. She was in Nauvoo, Illinois when the Prophet Joseph Smith was murdered.

She was baptized in 1842 in the Mississippi River. Sarah Jane, at the age of seventeen, crossed the Plains with her father, arriving in the Fall of 1851 in the Salt Lake Valley. Her father drove a freight wagon and Sarah Jane did the cooking. She walked every step of the way. The first year or two after arriving in the Valley they were very hungry. Many times they lived on nothing but weeds and sego lily bulbs. Sarah Jane worked for different people, including Elder Orson Pratt, for two years. The Huntsman family moved south as far as Parowan, Utah. Sarah Jane worked for Tarleton Lewis and became acquainted with his son, Samuel, whom she later married on 1 Jan 1854. She was nineteen years old.

Sarah Jane had taken out her endowments on 21 Jul 1852 in the Endowment House in Salt Lake City before they moved to Parowan. Sarah Jane knew all about pioneering a new home. It was all she had known all of her life; first with her parents and then with her own family. Each time, she once again squared her shoulders to the tasks ahead of her.

They moved to Thatcher, Arizona in Nov 1886 or 1887. Jane was often the head of the house as her husband was a stonemason and traveled where he could get work. A very sad thing happened. Their youngest son, Joseph, was ambushed and killed on a trip Sarah Jane had insisted on making.

Her husband blamed Sarah Jane for the death of their son. Soon after, they separated. Each went their separate way, neither married again. One morning she stood with her back to the fireplace while dressing. Somehow her dress caught fire. She screamed for help but by the time family members could get there she was so badly burned that she died in about half an hour, 20 Mar 1917. The doctor was afraid her body would burst so the funeral and burial had to be that same day. To the end she faced hardships and challenges. She was eighty-three years old.