Item Detail
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Whipple, Emma Melissa Oliver
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1867-1948
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MSS SC 509
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Autobiography
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Emma Melissa Oliver Whipple was born 21 September 1867 in Payson, Utah to William Temple Oliver and Nancy Frances Lovern. She grew up in Payson and attended school there for 13 years until her family move to Arizona in hopes of improving her fathers health. On 27 October 1880 her family left with the Sanders Family taking with them around three hundred head of cattle. They built a dug-out house in Holbrook and then soon after moved fifty miles south to Showlow Creek. At this point Emma met her husband to be, Willard Whipple, after two years of courtship they were married on 23 September 1884, two days after Emma turned 17. During their time in Holbrook they had eight children. Often Willard was off at work so Emma would take care of the family and their cattle with only the help of her older children. In 1903 they moved to Showlow, Arizona and there had five more children. In 1941 Emma had a nervous breakdown and became ill for multiple weeks; soon thereafter her husband died and from that point Emma suffered with ill health. On 29 August 1948 Emma passed away surrounded by family.
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This manuscript is two hundred and six typewritten pages long. A bound biography of Willard and Emma Whipple complied by their daughters Lydia Hansen and Alzada Stratton. The first two pages have photos of the Whipple family with names underneath every individual photo. These are followed by a one-hundred-page history of Willard Whipple and then fifteen pages of the names, birth and death dates of the descendants of Willard and Emma Whipple. Also included are a hundred pages of typewritten diary entries from the years 1888 and 1889 with short sentence long entries for every day (with the occasional exception of longer entries). Finally, the book closes with a four-page typewritten autobiography of Emma Whipple. Her biography covers the major events of her life such as birth, marriage, children, and her passing.
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1858-1948