Item Detail
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Cox, Martha Cragun
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1852-1932
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MSS SC 319
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Autobiography
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Martha Cragun Cox was born March 3, 1852 in Mill Creek Ward, Salt Lake County, Utah. Her family then moved south where her parents were among the first settlers of St. George, Utah. Martha 's childhood consisted of sporadic formal education, encounters with the area's Indians and constant exploration of the land in Southern Utah. At age eighteen, much to the consternation of family and friends, Martha became the third wife to a man from Washington County, Utah (Her husband remains anonymous throughout the biography). She spent most of her adult life as a school teacher on Indian Reservations and small communities in Utah. She moved to Mexico in 1901 and taught school in Diaz. She also did missionary work among the Yaqui Indians. Other than visits to the states, she remained in Mexico until the 1912 exodus of the Saints from that country. Martha lived for 80 years and in that time she experienced the social changes instigated by the government in World War I, the Roaring Twenties,' and the beginnings of the Great Depression. Cox passed away in 1932.
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Martha 's autobiography was written in 1929. It begins with a genealogical introduction and stories of her parent's lives in Illinois. Martha tells of the persecutions and trials her family faced because of their decision to join the LDS Church. Living in southern Utah at the turn of the century, Martha experienced the struggle between the old ways of the West against the modernization of the early 20th Century. Her writing reflects the typical attitudes and perspectives of many pioneers at the time. Having little education, Martha taught herself to read, and her literary style is sophisticated and intelligent. Martha writes with an alert and keen perspective of the events in her life. Mormon settlers, Polygamy
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1826-1890