Annie Groom Jeffs was born on the 7th of March 1866 at Chiltern Green1 to Nathan Groom Sr. and Emma Elizabeth Hill Groom.
When I had lived in this place two or three years, my parents moved to a place named Kimpton where I went to a kindergarten school. I was immunized for smallpox and the doctor put six patches on my arm. I had a real sore arm for a while but I never had smallpox until this day.
We lived at that place until after my brother Henry was born and then we moved to Ireland to a beautiful home. I and my brother Nathan went to Catholic school, but Father would not let us learn the Catholic creed so we had to go out in the playground for a half hour. We walked a long way over large streams of water that run a flax factory and made pure linen cloth. Father took us one day through it. Also one day while we lived there, we went and sang for Mager Moloney's wife and she gave us a large doll and a Nora hark and some playthings. The song we sang was a little bird building a warm nest in a tree and we went through the motions.
Father left that place and moved to England and lived in a place named Manchester. While there, going to school, we got whooping cough and I had it so bad the doctor told Father if he did not take us out into the country he would lose us all. Every time we would cough, our noses would bleed.
Father heard of a job in the country as Lord Ellesmere's game keeper. The name of the place was Ellenbrook. We lived there until Father came to Utah. While there, I worked in a cotton mill from six o'clock in the morning until six at night and walked over two miles. I also went to the Church of England Sunday school but Mother would not let me learn the creed and I did not find out why.
One Sunday, our teacher had her class come in the afternoon and she read a book for us for an hour. Before we left, she told us that the "dippers" were going to preach at a place named Mossley Common and we must not go and hear them because they were wicked people. After our teacher had gone into the church, myself and a girlfriend talked it over and we thought we would go and see what kind of people they were. We went, but were real frightened of them and did not go very close to them. We saw some of the people stopped by them and they did not hurt us, so we went up to them and listened to what they had to say. I heard one of the Elders say he had come six thousand miles to preach the gospel. This Elder's name was Osker F. Hunter from Salt Lake City.
I was late that Sunday afternoon getting home, so my mother wanted to know where I had been. I told her I had been to hear the dippers preach. She said, "What kind of people are they?" I told her I did not know. I said they sang out of our little hymn book and one man said he had come six thousand miles to preach the gospel. My mother told Father about it and he inquired around and he found there was a man working in a coal mine a ways from our home that belong to the church. He told him the name of the place were the Saints were holding meetings. Father told him when the Elders came again to have them call and see us, so one afternoon when I got home from work, these same two Elders were at our home. Mother told them how I came to find them. I think there was something about that teacher that she had to tell me about these Saints, but she never spoke to me again after that. She would pass me, but she had no time to speak.
This hymn book was a small LDS song book. My mother was a lovely singer, so at night she would get this book out and we would all sing the songs together. I knew most of them of by heart and that was a long time before we heard of the Saints. Father and Mother belonged to the church but we had moved around so much we had lost sight of the people.
Father and myself and my brother Nathan walked five miles to our first Mormon meeting. There were about eight people there and I thought it was a funny place to hold meeting, in the Elder's house. After the meeting was out, his good wife gave us supper, which is called tea in that country, and we walked back home again. The next Sunday, all the family went to the meeting. The house got too small to hold the people, so they rented a one-room building in Moreside, a mile nearer to our home. We went every Sunday afternoon. They had testimony meeting and at night the Elders took up the time.
I and my brother Nathan were baptized on the 22nd of December, at night. We walked a quarter of a mile through a meadow that is a grass pasture and there was a white frost on the grass. We walked back after, in our wet clothes and bare footed, and none of us took a cold. There was a large party baptized that night.
We walked four miles to church and back at night. Percy was a small boy and I have carried him home on and off a good many times, so my Father bought him a baby buggy so he could ride. We had a large choir and one Sunday, my brother and myself walked 10 miles to a district meeting to sing for the meeting and walked that many miles back after church, at night. There were about 30 men and girls that went. Trains don't run on Sundays, only half time.
We saw a large branch of the church grow from those few people. All came to Utah except one family. My brother came out to Utah first. That was Harry. Then in a year, my father came and a year after that, Father sent for Mother and my younger brother. Mother would not let my brother Nathan stay back with me, so one of the Elders loaned her the money and I was left by myself in England. I worked in a cotton mill and made my own living. I payed eight shillings a week to the people I stayed with.
An Elder told me if I would pay my tithing every week, I would go to Utah in a year. His name was Elder Horrock. So I thought I would try it out and I payed a full tithing every week. Sometimes I did not have only a few cents left after I had payed it. His words came true, for I left England in just a year.
My mother wrote to me a few weeks before and said she did not know when they would be able to send for me, but in the mean time my cousin George Low2told mother, why did she not get up a subscription and get me out? He said he would start it with five dollars and the Bishop gave five dollars and your dad gave two dollars and others in the ward of Buttlerville gave two dollars and some less until the money was raised. Mother wrote to me and told me to get ready, that my money was in Liverpool. So you see how the Lord worked things and that Elder's word came true.
It was but a few new clothes I got. I bought a pair of new shoes and payed ten shillings for them. It took me a long time to pay for them.
I left England some time in the first part of May. We were ten days on the water coming over3 and four days on the train from New York to Salt Lake City. That Elder came home at the same time. He lived someplace in Pleasant Valley. He had a large family and he lost is wife some years after he came home.
A few days after I got to Utah, I got a job working in the old paper mill at the mouth of Big Cottonwood canyon. We lived at Buttlerville. I worked there until fall and then Father moved to South Cottonwood. I lived there until the sixth of February when I was married to George H. Jeffs and went and lived in Buttlerville. Later we moved to Big Cottonwood where my first baby girl was born, Florence. After that, we went back to Buttlerville again and my husband worked as a night watchman at the old paper mill for nine months. Emma was born in the spring. My husband quit the mill and went to farming and a year after, we moved back to Big Cottonwood again and farmed again for William Taylor, a brother of John Taylor. While there, my third girl was born. When this girl was one year and three months old, we packed up and went to Idaho.
We have lived in Idaho 49 years this fall. We went to a place called Garfield and took up farming again where we built us a nice home from a one-room log cabin. Six children were born in Idaho. We went through all the hardships of pioneer life and lived on jack rabbits for morning, noon, and night. It was hard for a few years. We did not have much choice of food. We lost two boys at birth.
I have done nearly everything on a farm, to get started, that a woman could do. We built another home in Garfield after we sold the farm. Then we sold that one and moved to Ucon when Dora was eight years old.
Since living in Ucon, I have sat up with the sick night after night, helped dress the dead, and sat up with the dead. I was a teacher in the Relief Society in Garfield for two years and in Ucon for 14 years until my health became poor and I had to quit. I worked under four Relief Society presidents: Sister Tompson, Sister Ritchie, Sister Andrus, and Sister Howard Andrus. I am still a member. My companions as a teacher were Sister Pompson, Sister Tylar, and Mrs. Lords. I worked in the primary with Sister Mary Godfrey as President. In the branch of Ucon, I was a chorister and teacher in the primary. I sang in the choir in Ucon for a number of years and in the stake choir for a while under Joe Morley.
We had our Golden wedding four year ago and had an open house.
I have made quilts by the dozens for my neighbors and the Relief Society.
I am the mother of ten children. All have been through the temple, except one. I have done quite a lot of temple work in Logan and done quite a few missionary names and was married in Salt Lake temple on June 11th, 1913.
I took care of my mother for six weeks when she was sick in my home. After a few years, I went to the Idaho Falls hospital and stayed with her on and off for six weeks until she died in her 89th year. I have 40 grandchildren and 29 great-grandchildren.
I cannot think of any more.
Annie Groom Jeffs
