After striking out in my search for my
great-great-great-great-great grandmother Phebe’s grave, I went back to the
proverbial drawing board (read: Google) to see if I could find more details
about the family plot she was supposedly in. I revisited the Find a Grave site
and noticed that the picture of the cemetery they had assigned to Phebe was not
the Salt Lake City cemetery. Intrigue!
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| Photo from findagrave.com |
It was in fact the Mormon Pioneer Memorial cemetery, aka the
Brigham Young family cemetery, and I lived right down the street from it! This
actually made a lot of sense, and here’s why:
- When Phebe went west toward Utah, she did not travel with her husband James. I’ve come across different reasons and don’t know why for sure, but he was alive when she left.
- Phebe was socially very connected to the early leadership of the LDS church, including the first and second presidents, Joseph Smith Jr. and Brigham Young. She was known among the saints as “Mother Angell.”
- Her daughter Mary Ann married Brigham Young after his first wife passed away, and was his first wife under the practice of plural marriage. At some point, Phebe was also married to Brigham Young, who through polygamy was married to over 50 women—some of which were older single women like Phebe. Another of Phebe’s daughters was also married to Brigham Young.
What does this mean? The Young family cemetery might be the
perfect place to find her!
I swung by one day after work and took flowers, excited to
finally find her and to visit the cemetery that I had driven past many times
without knowing what it was. It’s really more like a very small memorial park
combined with graves that are scattered around an open grassy area. I found
Mary Ann easily, as she was buried prominently next to Brigham.
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| Mary Ann's large slab headstone, courtesy of findagrave.com* |
The rest of the graves were other wives of Brigham, and were
erratically placed with smaller stones. I played a several rounds of “Grave
marker or sprinkler head?” before I had the entire park scoped out, and still
no Phebe. Could it be possible that after everything her remains had been
through, she was again buried without a memorial? It didn’t sit right with me,
but there clearly was no stone with her name on it.
Unfortunately, that’s as far as my search for Phebe has
gone. I want to consult a professional to see if there is some official record
of her burial somewhere, but it hasn’t happened yet. However, I won’t stop
looking, and the journey thus far to find her has helped me learn a great deal
about her and her family, which ultimately resulted in me—something I’m
obviously very thankful for.
Tips
- If you’re facing a lot of family history and don’t know where to start, pick one person or immediate family to focus on. The rest aren’t going anywhere, and having a focus point will make it much easier to stay motivated.
- Pay close attention to the sources you’re looking at—one overlooked picture or sentence might have an important clue, and if you miss it you could end up on a wild goose chase.
- Just because you don’t find exactly what you’re looking for doesn’t mean you’re walking away empty-handed. Enjoy the search as well as the find!
*You may have noticed that many of my pictures are from findagrave.com. While I did take my own photos, I haven't been able to locate them. See my website page on "Preserving Your Memories" to read about how this is a really irresponsible and unhelpful way to manage your photo collection. :)
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