ELIZABETH COLEMAN LEWIS

BIRTHDATE: 6 Dec 1856

Hemel-Hempstead, Henfordshire, England

DEATH: 18 Dec 1932

Vernal, Utah

PARENTS: George Coleman

Elizabeth Bailey Coleman

PIONEER: 26 Oct 1864

Williarn Hyde Wagon Company

SPOUSE: Siney Lewis, Sr.

MARRIED: 5 Jan 1874

Salt Lake City, Utah

DEATH SP: 28 Nov 1929

Vernal, Utah

CHILDREN:

David, 23 Nov 1874

Leonora, 16 Aug 1876

Annie Elizabeth, 8 May 1878

Minnie "C." 21 Sep 1880

Siney Jr., 6 Jun 1883

Franklin C," 22 Jul 1885

Mary, 25 Nov 1887

Georgianna, 12 Jul 1890

Charles Preston, 3 Mar 1892

Aaron, 17 Jan 1894

Birda. 9 Jun 1899

Jennie, 6 Dec 1900

Elizabeth Coleman Lewis was born in England, the tenth child of a family of eleven children. Her parents kept a little shop and sold grocery items and fuel. They were thrifty middle-class people. Elizabeth had some schooling. She learned to make lace with little bobbins and to prepare the straw to make straw hats. Mormon missionaries converted the family in 1844. Elizabeth was seven years of age when she came to Utah with her parents, a brother and two sisters. The family sailed from London on the ship "Hudson" on 3 Jun 1864 and landed in New York. Elizabeth was very ill with Mountain Fever for many weeks after they arrived in the Salt Lake Valley 26 Oct 1864. She had walked most of the way across the Plains. They made their home in the Holladay area of the Salt Lake Valley.

They suffered extensively from poverty and hard work. Elizabeth showed great aptness in using her hands, harmonizing colors into beautiful articles such as hair nets, hair wreathes, fancy work, wool flowers and straw flowers. She became very skilled in braiding straw for hats. On 5 Jan 1874, at age seventeen, Elizabeth married Siney Lewis, Sr. in the Endowment House in Salt Lake City, Utah. He was eight years her senior. In order to help out financially, Elizabeth knit stockings and gloves. She also took in washings for a family of twelve. With the money she bought a sewing machine to sew overalls for Z.C.M.I. department store. She often had to sit up sewing by candle light until one or two in the morning in order to reach the quota assigned to her. She shared the machine with her husband's plural wife.

Elizabeth was never satisfied without accomplishing something each day. Even when old she never lost her pride even though much of what she did was drudgery. Her poetical nature craved pretty things: a pretty handkerchief, a piece of good jewelry, a bit of lace, some mild perfume. She was of a religious nature and had great faith in prayer. She taught her children to rely on the Lord. She was loving and loyal to her family. She and her husband were married for 55 years. She gave birth to twelve children; five sons and seven daughters. Two died in childhood and three were born prematurely. When her daughter, Minnie, died at the age of forty-five Elizabeth went to her home and cared for her husband and eight children. She became more and more grief-stricken and soon became desperately ill. She lived three years after that, but was never entirely well again. Elizabeth died 18 Dec 1932 in Vernal, Utah just four years after her husband. Her daughter, Mary, wrote this tribute about her mother. "My mother was not a public worker. A woman rearing twelve children of her own and two of another woman's had very little time. To me, her life was a beautiful tapestry-the tones subdued and blended with only a bright spot here and there for variety." Elizabeth is loved and revered by her posterity.

Source:Pioneer Women of Faith and Fortitude, page 1779, Daughters of Utah Pioneers