Mary Butterly was born in Sheffield, Yorkshire, England[1],
15 August 1815. She married Joshua Hague Gillett in England. They came
to America, with their six children, in 1849. She and Joshua crossed
the plains in 1852. She had the heartache of burying a baby at sea
while coming to America. Another child died in Alton, Illinois where
they lived for a time.
After the family arrived in Utah, they moved to Milton in the Tooele
area, where they farmed. The first winter was spent in a dug out, with
no floor or windows and only cedar bark to lay on the floor and an old
buffalo robe for the children to sleep on.
Mary helped her husband on the farm. After his death, she moved from
the farm in Milton to Tooele and made her living nursing. She was one
of the first nurses in Toole. She walked from Tooele to Milton many
times with her small children to take care of their large garden, and
also to care for the sick.
She was the mother of thirteen children and was of a very kind and
gentle disposition. She could go out to the field, catch a sheep, shear
it, wash the wool, spin it into cloth and make clothing out of the
wool.
She worked in the temple a great deal, doing work for the dead.
She was a Relief Society worker until the time of her death on 5 June
1885[2] at Tooele. She had sixty four grandchildren and almost that many great grandchildren.
Written in February 1938 by her granddaughter, Annie Gillett Kone.
Notes: [1] The Ancestral File lists her bith place as
Ridgeway, Derbyshire, England. It lists her christening as 10 Sep
1815 at Eckington, Derbyshire, England. [2] The Utah Burials Database lists her death date
as 6 May 1885 and burial date as 8 May 1885. It seems possible
that either the author of history or the cemetery transcriber reversed
the month and day, since the two proposed dates of her death are
6/5/1885 and 5/6/1885. It is more likely that the burial database
is correct, though, as it lists the burial date in May also.
Revisions:
2008: Transcribed by Sherie Goring
2008, December: Added notes for her birth place and death date
