Frances Elizabeth Pearson Bridges 1837-1928

Great Grandmother of Jesse Grant Green

If I am to give you a summary of my life so far, it would start with my membership in The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints when I was baptized at age 18 in Birmingham England with my sister Sara Ann. I found early on that some people are very intolerant to the Mormon views. My mother had joined the Church just the month before, something my father could not abide, and the primary drive in leaving his wife and family. Baptism and my testimony formed the direction that my life would take. At 22, I boarded the “William Tapscott” with my mother, her new husband Richard, and my sister leaving my homeland to join the Saints in America. The voyage was not pleasant but it didn’t require the same type of endurance that was needed when we signed-on to the George Rowley hand cart company in Florence Nebraska. It took all of our strength and determination to make the journey but six months after we left England we arrived in Salt Lake. My sister, Sarah married along the way and her husband Edward Munn helped us on the trail.

I was able to work in the home of President John Taylor – to hear of the martyrdom of the Prophet from the lips of one who was there; to see the watch and the bullet that shattered the watch…well, memories not to be forgotten.

I wasn’t in Salt Lake for a year when I met and married Charles. I had just turned 24 when Brigham Young sealed us for eternity in the old endowment house in Salt Lake. Charles was 25 and had come out west in the first handcart company and he needed someone to take care of him. I worked with my sister at the hot springs in Bountiful that my mother had purchased. The waters attracted a lot of visitors and travelers and we were kept busy making their accommodations and cooking meals.

When I was 29 we were “called” by Apostle Charles Rich under the direction of President Brigham Young to help colonize the Bear Lake Valley. We moved to a place called Clover Creek. This place was later renamed Montpelier. There were just a few families here then but it would become the place that I would come to know and love and call “home”.

I remember a special highlight of a Church conference held in Montpelier in about ’72 – we had only been here for about 6-yrs. President John Taylor presided over that conference and blessed our home with his presence for dinner. I served him as I had done some 14-yrs earlier when I had just arrived in the west. He gave my daughter Marian a blessing that day, a blessing that she and I will never forget.

I raised my family here, I served in the Relief Society Presidency for 32-yrs, I was set apart as a midwife and delivered over 1500 babies in and around Montpelier. My sweet Charles died a few years ago at age 77. I am old and crippled and almost blind but my daughter Grace has given me my own room at her place. She and her daughters treat me kindly and look after my needs. What is there in this world that is more comforting than family, and Gods promise of being with them forever.