Eleanor Martin, Mr. Ricks’ first wife, having been born and reared on the frontiers of civilization was in every respect a true wife and a noble woman. Her life was cast among the people and in a region where troubles and trials were the lot of all, but she never faltered in her duties or shirked a responsibility. She wore out her life in the finding and redeeming a wilderness and we feel sure that in the great hereafter when justice shall be done to those who laid down their lives for the race, she will be counted among the noble ones. She died Feb. 18, 1882.
Eleanor Martin Rick’s own account of the important events of her life is written on the first page of a book which records the Patriarchal Blessings given by her husband Joel Ricks. She lived in Clark County, Kentucky, until she was twelve years of age, when she moved with her father to Trigg County. Following her marriage to Joel Ricks in 1827, the events of her life follow closely those of her husband. They were both baptized on the same day; they went through the Nauvoo Temple together, and they shared in the great exodus of the Saints from Nauvoo.
Her first Utah home was at Farmington. In 1857 she moved with her husband to Logan, Utah, where she arrived before the first surveying of the city had been completed. Joel and Eleanor are undoubtedly the only couple who have their names on the deeds of every piece of property on the west side of Logan Main Street between Center Street and First North. In this area, about there the Bluebird1 now stands, Joel built a large rock house. Whenever L. D. S. Church authorities visited Logan, they went directly to the Ricks home where they were sure of kindly hospitality. Eleanor kept an immaculate home and was an excellent cook.
To illustrate her southern hospitality her grandchildren say that every fall their grandmother held a "Pumpkin Festival." When the crop was at its best and the new molasses was ready for sweetening she sent word to all her grandchildren to come to see her during a certain week. Then she made dozens of pies and served her family and friends generously. When she grew older and could no longer see to read her Bible and Book of Mormon, it was these same grandchildren who read to her.
Eleanor was trained in the arts which grace the home. A lace collar of netting which is a keepsake of the family is an exquisite example of her skill. Her curtains and the deep valances on her spotless beds were edged with her knitted lace. Her white knitted bedspreads were honored by those who saw them. She wore fine blue and white counterpanes. Her flower beds brightened the desert.
Eleanor was a descendant of James Martin and Sarah Harris, and of Thomas Turner and Catherine Smith. Her lines include the Daubneys, Jennings, Overtons, Clairbornes and Smiths of Virginia.
The following is an excerpt from the obituary of Eleanor Martin Ricks published in a Logan paper:
". . . She was the mother of eleven children and had ninety-four great grandchildren . . . She endured with her husband many of the hardships and persecutions heaped upon the Saints in early days. She crossed the plains in 1848, and even when in the midst of the desert one of her sons was shot down by savages, she did not murmur or complain. The greatest anxiety of her later years was that she might live to enter the Logan Temple and there do work for her dead that she could not do anywhere else. But the Temple was not completed, and hence her desires were not realized . . ."However, as soon as the temple opened, through her husband’s efforts, the work which she had dreamed of doing was accomplished, and a record of it was carefully preserved.
