by Richard Hansen

Emily Lydia Snyder Thompson was born January 27, 1846, in Nauvoo, Ill., a daughter of George G. and Sarah W. Hatch. The family went through all of the persecutions heaped upon the Saints, until they left their homes and started on their trek west. Although not quite four years old when her parents brought her across the plains, she remembers how her father broke his leg and the mother had to drive the team of oxen across the plains. While the cattle were still in the enclosure formed by the wagons when they stopped for the night, a woman shook a white tablecloth and scared the cattle so they stampeded. Mr. Snyder was knocked down and his leg broken in the stampede, and this little girl never forgot the incident. The mother drove two yoke of oxen on the wagon as there were five in the wagon, Lydia her father and mother, her Grandma Hatch and a daughter, who was the sister of Emily's mother Sarah W. Hatch.

They stayed in Salt Lake the winter of 1849, then went to California to "find gold" the next spring.

The George G. Hatch family ran a boarding house for miners from 1850 to 1854, then decided they would rather live in Utah with the Latter-day Saints than stay in California with the miners. Five other wagons filled with Saints returned with them, as the Indians attacked the travelers, especially if there were just one or two wagons. After the first night, other wagons joined them and they were able to reach Utah kin safely.

They returned to Salt Lake City where Emily attended school, while it lasted. When she was eleven years old her father bought a ranch across the Jordon River about eight miles west of Salt Lake City. He also purchased twenty cows and Emily being the only child old enough to learn how to milk cows had the job of milking six cows each night and morning.

The grasshoppers came in hordes one year and the crops were nearly all devoured by them. People dug sego roots and lived on anything which was edible. Lydia's father had a small field of barley which had escaped the grasshoppers. They had been without bread for only a few days, but Mr. Snyder decided to cut around the outside of the field where the barley was nearly ripe and see if the miller could make them some barley flour. He cut a swath around the field, they gathered it by hand dried the barley on the ground then threshed it out with a stick and took it to the miller. The barley was too soft, the miller could not grind it but he chopped it as fine as possible. That night they had chopped barley biscuits for supper and Emily remember how delicious they tasted years after she ate them.

Each winter the family moved into Salt Lake in order that the children could attend school. On July 24, 1857, the Saints were having a big celebration in Salt Lake to commemorate the tenth Anniversary of the Saints arrival in Utah, when a messenger arrived telling Governor Young that Johnston's Army was arriving in Salt Lake to install Alfred Cummings as Governor of the Territory of Utah in place of Brigham Young. Emily well remember how her father and all of the men at the celebration went home and prepared to move south. Their houses were prepared for burning in case the soldiers were stationed in Salt Lake City. When the soldiers marched through Salt Lake and camped near Lehi, Brigham sent messengers to tell every one to move back to Salt Lake. Emily remembered how happy her family was to come back to their home and find no one had harmed it.

Emily learned to spin, weave, crochet, sew, make candles, make soap, in fact all of the crafts which were necessary in order to live in that period. She became engaged to marry Orvil Thompson and wove the cloth for her wedding dress, cut out the dress and made it by hand.

She wove table cloths and towels from flax which her father grew. Her mother had passed away October 12, 1861 and left a family of five children for Lydia to mother, and two years after her mother's death she married Orvil Thompson, Dec. 19, 1863 and lived in Bountiful.

The next spring her husband. Orvil Thompson, was called to drive a yoke of four oxen to Florence, Nebraska to bring emigrants to Utah. He did not return until November. Before Orvil left he had taken a farm on shares and planted grain. In September when it was ready to harvest, she tried to get some one to cut the grain but could not. One Sunday morning she looked out of the window and there the grain was cut and twenty men and boys from her ward had cut it by hand and bound it into bundles. She told this incident when she was an old woman as she had never forgotten their thoughtfulness.

The Orvil Thompson family moved from Bountiful to Sanpete and from Sanpete to Scipio. It was during the Black Hawk Indian war, however they were not harmed nor did they lose any of their cattle or have property destroyed. Times were not easy but Emily was used to hard work and never complained about her lot, but did her work with a cheerful heart.

Emily Lydia Snyder Thompson died December 12, 1929 and is buried in Scipio Cemetery.

Children of Orvil and Emily Lydia Thompson: Orval Browning Thompson and Emily Lydia Snyder Thompson: Orvil Lorenzo, born Dec. 11, 1864; at Woods Cross George. born July 22, 1867, at Woods Cross but died as an infant; Sarah Emily born March 9, 1870, also died as a small child; Ella Marie. horn April 3, 1875; in Scipio; Burton born April 1, 1882, died as a child; LaVisa, born Sept. 14, 1884 Scipio.

Orvil Browning Thompson, husband of Emily Lydia Thompson was born May 8. 1841 and died in Scipio August 24, 1888.

Source: Builders of Early Millard