Item Detail
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Lambert, Mary Lorisa Hovey
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1859-1947
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MSS SC 1754
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Biography
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Mary Lorisa Hovey Lambert was born July 22, 1859 in Millville, Utah. She learned homemaking skills and also helped her family make a living in the desert. On November 28, 1878, she received her endowments in the Salt Lake Endowment House and became the second polygamous wife of Charles John Lambert. They did not have any children, so Mary was given the opportunity to learn music. She later became a midwife and nurse, and she aided in the deliverance of many babies. In 1917, Charles John sold his farm and built a home in Salt Lake City. He died in 1924, and after that, Mary lived alone, renting out the front rooms. Her widowed sister, Martha, later came to live with her, though when Mary was older, Mary fell and broke her hip and was forced to spend most of her remaining life in hospitals. She died October 6, 1947.
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This three-page typescript biography was written by one of Charles John Lambert's granddaughters, Lurena Eldredge Warnick, and is a brief sketch of Mary Lambert's life. There are some descriptions of her birth, but very few concerning her childhood, although she describes Mary as having been a 'sturdy, energetic youth' with brown hair and brown eyes. Lurena relates Charles John's first wife's feelings concerning polygamy and the struggle she had with it, as well as Mary's thoughts concerning why she couldn't have children. Although Mary never had any children of her own, she helped to deliver her cousin's child in 1890, and when the mother died nine days later, Mary was given the child to raise. Mary was also the nurse for Lurena's younger brothers and sisters, and Lurena recalls a time when she seven years old and sick with pneumonia and pluresy. She was taken care of by Mary.