Life Sketch
Margaret Mathews was born in Swansea, Glamorgan, Wales on June 11, 1849. Her parents, Hopkin and Margaret Morris Mathews, joined The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and had both served as missionaries before and after their marriage. When Margaret was seven years of age, her parents left Liverpool, England for America. They landed in New York City six weeks later with their five children.
They traveled overland to Iowa City where they became a part of the Edward Bunker Handcart Company and walked all the way to Utah. She never forgot the Brass Band and the hundreds of Saints who met them as those
foot-sore and weary people entered the city. She could hardly sleep in a house after sleeping so long out of doors. In the spring of 1858, her parents took the family to Farmington, Utah. It was a town ten years old, but they decided to go on to a newer place—Providence, Utah. There they lived in the open for months. The children watched while men plowed with crude hand-made tools and planted gardens. They built a few log cabins in a fort formation because the Indians resented settlers’ presence. The Indians often stole horses and cattle, but once two squaws stole a little boy. No child had a better pair of parents. They were hard-working and faithful to the Church. Margaret learned to do as all the girls did: how to clear wool fresh from sheep’s backs, card it, spin it and knit it into socks or stockings.
Her mother was a nurse and midwife for years. Margaret took her place in the home when her mother was called away. Their log cabin was heated from a fireplace until a bigger and better house was built. They had no matches, so it was wise to keep live, red-hot coals from night until morning rather than go out borrowing fire in the cold weather. The dancing parties she attended in a log schoolhouse and later in the larger rock building were lighted by burning logs in the fireplace.
Margaret never had running water on tap in her life until long after her husband died. She carried it from streams near the house. Her father was in the first Providence Bishopric and her mother was a counselor in the first Relief Society in Providence.
When the Church leaders suggested that the girls and women glean wheat behind the scythe-wielding harvesters, she became a gleaner. She gave some of the wheat she gathered to the Relief Society, which had a wheat storage project at that time. The wheat the Relief Society owned was sold for the Logan Temple Fund.
As a young lady, she often was hired out in the homes of the Saints. She accepted all the teachings and advice of the Church leaders. She was employed in the home of Oscar N. and Jane Rice. She became the second wife of Oscar North Rice in 1869, ten years after Jane Miller had been sealed to Oscar in the Endowment House under the authority of the Priesthood of God for all Eternity. Margaret passed away on February 18, 1926, in Providence, Utah.
