Item Detail
-
Smith, Ann Cross Leithead
-
1848-1909
-
MSS SC 1103
-
Biography
-
Ann Cross Leithead was born April 7, 1848 in Des Moines, Iowa. In the spring, two years after her birth, her father and mother James Leithead and Deborah Lamoreaux left for Salt Lake City, Utah. Before she was sixteen years old Ann married Thomas Goldman Smith. They had eleven children. With her family and her parents she moved to Muddy Valley after Brigham Young instructed them to settle the area. At the time they left she had a young son named James. They arrived in the Muddy Valley on January 8, 1866. On November 10, 1866 she gave birth to a baby girl named Deborah who died and was buried in St. Thomas-now covered by Lake Mead. Ann became pregnant again and left for Farmington, Utah, in hope of improving her health and that of the baby's. Her son Charles was born in 1868 but died soon afterwards. Her son William Seymore was born June 24, 1870 in St. Thomas. Around 1870 the Saints where instructed to abandon the valley because it was annexed by Nevada. Conrad John was born in their new home in Glendale; after that followed Rhoda Ann, Joseph Fielding, Jacob Nephi, Hyrum, David and George Albert. Ann died of a heart ailment July 20, 1909. Ann and Thomas where sealed together on August 12, 1872.
-
This collection contains biographies of the James Leithead Family. Each biography consists of copied pages and many include pictures of the subjects and of their families. Also included in the collection are family group sheets for many of the people providing vital records for the families. Ann Cross Leithead Smith's biography is three typewritten pages. Ann had the privilege of being born into the home of loving parents and showed that same love to her own children. Her granddaughter Salome Hunter, who is the author of her biography, recalled that Ann would make buttermilk biscuits twice a day and it was always a privilege for her grandchildren to eat them topped with her homemade jam or apple butter. She remembered that her grandmother used to sit in front of the fireplace in her big black shawl and churn butter.
-
-