Life Sketch
Elizabeth Ann Morris was born in Ponteat, Carmarthen, South Wales on June 13, 1817, the daughter of Richard and Eliza Jones Morris. When Ann was thirteen years of age, her mother died, leaving six children. Ann’s father married again and deserted his own family. Ann was given a good home by a family who loved her as their own. In 1841, she married William Butler, a coal digger, and they became the parents of four children. They were among the first people to hear the Gospel of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Wales. After prayerful study, the Butlers accepted the teachings and commenced preparations to cast their lot with the Saints in America. At last, reservations were made for the family to sail, but tragedy hit, and William, stricken with cholera, died July 13, 1855. Sometime later, two days prior to sailing, a son and a daughter developed cholera and died. If Ann stopped to bury her son and daughter she would give up her chance to leave and her reservations could not be refunded. The decision to leave someone to attend to the burial so she could go was a heart-breaking experience for Ann, but her desire to carry out plans to be in Zion was strong.
Ann and her two children, Elizabeth and William Richard, arrived at Boston, Massachusetts May 25, 1856. They rode in a railroad cattle car from Boston to Des Moines, Iowa, and after three weeks of waiting for their handcart to be made ready, they started the trek across the plains. They left June 23, 1856 in Captain Bunker’s Handcart Company. At Winter Quarters they received more provisions. When they reached the Salt Lake Valley on October 2, 1856, their clothes were in tatters, and rags were wrapped around their cracked, sore feet. If a supply wagon had not come to meet them, they would have perished.
One of Ann’s friends from Wales took her and her two children into her home for a few days. Then Heber C. Kimball asked Ira Rice, a widower of means, if he would employ Ann as his housekeeper. This arrangement proved an advantage to both, and on November 20, 1856, they were married. They were happy in their pioneer home with their two families, but were never blessed with children of their own.
With Ira, Ann moved from North Ogden and thence to Providence, Utah, where they lived until 1865. At that time they answered a call to settle to the south. Ann was left a widow again while in Washington, Utah, in 1868.
She had been set apart as a midwife by Heber C. Kimball and she brought hundreds of babies into the world without medical assistance. She endured many hardships and was known far and wide as Grandma Rice, recognized for her gifts of discernment and vision, faithfulness in church service, and a willingness to work hard and long. Ann died at the age of 81 and was buried at Escalante, Utah on November 30, 1898, where she had been living to be near her children and grandchildren.
