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Catherine Cameron Southam. Catherine Cameron was an
extraordinary woman. She was born in Glasgow, Scotland, on April 21,
1847, to John Alexander Cameron and Margaret Fairgrieve. She was their
first child. Her father was a Scottish highlander from Argyllshire, who
worked as a shoemaker. Catherine's parents joined the Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter Day Saints in Glasgow. When Catherine was one year old,
the family immigrated to the United States.
They lived in Patterson, New Jersey, with Margaret's sister. While there, Margaret became very ill. Doctors thought that she would die. Mormon elders administered to her, and she was given a blessing. They said that she would be healed and that a son would come to bless their home. A son, James, was born one year later, in 1851. They stayed in Patterson for four years, until: "In Patterson, they lived with Margaret's sister. John told his wife to not tell her sister they were Mormons as he knew their attitudes toward the Mormons. For a while she didn't, but she was so pleased with her membership that she finally told her sister, expecting her to be glad for her. Instead her sister ordered them out of their home." (John H. Haslem)
They moved to St. Louis, Missouri in 1852. The family had very little money: "When they arrived in St. Louis, it was probably Friday night. They had enough money to buy food for his wife and two children and himself for one week, or else enough to pay for lodging for his family. They decided that they must have a place to live, so they spent every cent they had for lodging. He went out and got himself a job at his trade of shoemaking, but he could not start work until Monday. Being a faithful man, he located the Church, which was about nineteen blocks from where they lived. Sunday morning on his way to Church he found 25 cents in paper money lying on the board sidewalk. There were people coming and going all the way, but by the time he had reached the church, he had found enough money to feed his family for one week." (George H. Southam)
Margaret became ill again. Catherine had become used to illness in the family. When she was a small girl she always pretended her dolls were sick so she could nurse them better. Her father told her that she should become a nurse when she grew up. In 1855, when Catherine was eight years old, her mother died of pneumonia. Later same that year, John married Mary McFall Tompson. John and Mary had two little girls, and a boy, who died young. Margaret and Mary, the little girls, died in St. Louis. Mary died two years later, in 1857. John was married again, the next year, to Alice Parkinson. A son, John, was born to them in 1859, in St. Louis.
In the spring of 1861, the Cameron family prepared to cross the plains to Utah with a company of Latter Day Saints. They had in their care a little nephew of Alice Parkinson's, William Parkinson. They traveled up the river by boat from St. Louis to Florence, Nebraska. While they were camped there, a daughter, Jannette, was born in a covered wagon.
The Captain of the company was Joseph W. Young. Ancel Harman assisted John Cameron in driving his two yoke of oxen to draw the heavy wagon. After they had traveled several days, John Cameron became sick with mountain fever, and was not able to drive the wagon: "The worry and hardship caused by this new responsibility, which he felt he was not fitted for, and the hardships of bringing his family across the plains, contributed to the circumstances which caused him to take Mountain Fever." (George H. Southam)John was very ill, and Alice was still recovering from childbirth. The family was worried that they would have to drop out of the wagon train, but it was decided that Catherine would drive the wagon, with help when needed. Captain Young and his assistant, Ancel Harmon, said they would help them until they were well and could keep up with the company that way. Catherine was only fourteen years old, but she drove her father's oxen with Oscar Young's help. It was a very heavy load for Catherine to care for her sick parents, and the smaller children, and to take the responsibility of driving the wagon, but she did it. Catherine drove the oxen most of the way. Their company of Saints traveled throughout the hot summer over the prairies and mountains to the Salt Lake Valley, and arrived there in late October 1861.
The family settled in Salt Lake Valley, until they were called by Presiding Bishop Hunter to settle Round Valley in northern Utah. They were the first settlers in Round Valley.
Catherine became friends with George and Jane Southam. Jane was unable to have children, so encouraged George to take a second wife. On the 28th November 1862, Catherine was married to George Southam in the Endowment House as his plural wife. Daniel H. Wells performed the wedding. Catherine was only 15 years old. George was 32 years old.
George Southam worked for Bishop Hunter in Round Valley, until they moved to Morgan, Utah. While in Morgan four children were born to Catherine and George: Mary Jane (1865), George Henry (1866), Eliza (1868), and Alice (1870). George Southam was a kind and devoted father, and also a faithful Latter Day Saint. George and Catherine became the parents of fourteen children, four of whom did not live to be named. While in Morgan, George was called to be a teamster for an oxtrain to bring the last wagon company from Sweetwater, Wyoming, before the railroad was finished: "At one time, George Southam was called to go on a mission "without purse or scrip". Catherine was in bed with a new baby. They were poor, having no food stored and no one big enough to care for the money and children and home. But such was their faith that he went, leaving his wife and little ones in care of the Lord and the Saints. (Catherine C. Southam testified later in life that the Lord did provide and raise up friends in their time of need and she got along better than if her husband had been home.)" (Amy Gardiner and Dorothy Hein)George bought a small farm and worked for the Union Pacific railroad, then he moved Catherine, her children, and Janeto North Evanston, where he bought a house and they all lived together.
Alice Southam Haslam writes: "We lived at Evanston about fourteen years and while there we had lots of sickness and bad luck. Mother lost a baby, Ruth, born Feb. 3, 1873, who died 24th of Feb. the same year; then the year 1876 we all had smallpox and lost brother James. In 1877 we lost sister Eliza Ann who was nine years old; then after Father's death we lost brother John with pneumonia. Mother had lots of experience with sickness in her own family as well as helping with the sickness in our community."
Catherine's experience with illness led to her interest in medicine: "As early as 1871, Catherine began to work with the sick, and seemed to be a natural-born nurse. When a small girl she always had her dolls sick so she could doctor and nurse them better. Her father told her she should be a nurse when she grew up. In 1871 she started helping the sick, and they appreciated it so much - her kindness, they never forgot her kindness. She assisted Dr. Harrison, and Dr. Hawlker in Evanston, Wyoming. While her children were very young, Aunt Jane (George Southam's first wife) tended the children. She was like a mother to the children. I have heard the older children say they loved Aunt Jane nearly as much as their mother. She raised no children of her own, and she loved children very much, so she was a great help to Catherine in rearing her big family while she worked out with the sick." (John H. Haslem)
More children were born to Catherine and George in Evanston: Ruth (1873), who died as a baby, James (1875) who died in 1876, William (1877), Emma (1879), Margaret (1882), and John (1885). George bought a ranch in Bear River and a home in town, so that the children could go to school. Catherine's father helped pay for their schooling. On Christmas Eve, 1885 while crossing the Bear River, George's team and wagon cracked through the ice, and George was drowned. The family and friends of the family searched for George's body under the ice: "His body went down under the ice and lay there five days while his family suffered and his friends searched in vain for the body. It seemed that they would have to give up the search, when the mother of George appeared to her thirteen year-old daughter, Alice, in the night. She told Alice where they could find the body of George. Alice told her mother about the visitation and said, "We will find Papa's body tomorrow." It happened like it had been shown to Alice in the night." (Amy Gardiner and Dorothy Hein)At the funeral, in the cold and icy weather, the baby John caught a cold, which became pneumonia, and he later died. This was a time of great sorrow for Catherine.
The family decided to move to Vernal, where George Henry, the oldest son, had a homestead. "During this time George Henry had taken up a homestead on Brush Creek at Vernal, Utah; when he heard of Father's death he came home, and helped on the ranch the following summer. In the fall he moved us to his farm on Brush Creek. The family moved to Vernal, in the Ashley Valley: "In the fall of 1886, Catherine and her family, and her older daughter and her husband, Warren L. Allen, and their family, moved to Ashley Valley. This valley was yet new and sparsely settled, so her children could get homes of their own as they grew up." (John H. Haslem)
The widowed Catherine struggled with her concerns about taking care of the family: "Before this move to Ashley Valley she was helping her father do the work for their dead the year the Salt Lake Temple opened. She told herfather she would have to give up helping the sick, as she felt it was more than she could do while caring for her young family. Her father said, "Catherine, you are all that your mother has to represent her here on earth, and you are only fulfilling your Patriarchal Blessing where it says you will be as a Well of Living Water in a desert, and people shall flow to you, and call you blessed." While in the temple some of the sisters told her it had been made known to them that she was to be called and set apart to take care of the sick in Uintah Stake, as there was only one doctor, and very little help there for sick people. She was set apart by the President of the Church, and he told her if she would go to Ashley Valley, and honor her calling, he would promise her that her wheat bin would never be empty (which was a great promise in those days when wheat was so valuable, and her large family to feed). I, her grandson John H. Haslem, can testify that her children never went hungry or cold. They lived as well, or better than most other families in the valley. Everyone was poor out there those days, and all the neighbors wondered how she provided so well for her family. The Lord surely helped her." (John H. Haslem)
Catherine started nursing to help provide for her family. Her daughter, Alice remembers: "She would hitch up the horse to the buggy and travel many miles to deliver a new baby or help in other sickness. No matter what the weather might be, or what time of night she was called, her pay would be a bushel of wheat or a sack of potatoes or whatever they might have she could use for her family. Sometimes they had nothing, but that was all right too if they needed her, and sometimes she stayed for several days. Our homestead was on Ashley Creek, which was called Riverdale Ward at that time. Later they called it Naples, which is about three miles from Vernal." Catherine worked to support her family through her nursing: "She worked in the Deseret Hospital at intervals- about two years with Dr. Anderson and Mattie Paul Hughes, and with Zina D. Young. In 1911 she told her granddaughter, Alice Southam Cook, that she had assisted in over 1,000 births of babies, and she still practiced many years after that. Her fee for her work was $5.00, if they had the cash, and most of the people she helped didn't, so she would take her pay in wheat or whatever the poor people had that they could spare. John H. Haslem, her grandson from Alice Haslem, was with her one day when she was making her last call on Mrs. John J. Davis &emdash; he was the President of the Uintah Stake &emdash; and he told her he didn't have money, but wheat he would like to pay her with. Wheat was next best to cash in those days. She got her seamless sacks she always carried under the seat in her two-wheeled cart (as she didn't have a buggy yet, but got one later to travel all over Ashley Valley, and Jensen, and Brush Creek). We filled the two sacks nearly full, as wheat was priced at $2.50 per sack. We were sweeping the wheat bin trying to fill the last sack, when she came on the scene, and said, "Brother Davis it that all the wheat you have?" He said yes, but he was about ready to thrash more wheat, so would soon fill his wheat bin again. She told Johny to dump that wheat back in under the boys' bed where we got it from. She said, "I never took the last kernel of wheat from anyone yet, and I won't take this from you." We drove away without any pay. It was customary to have twenty or thirty bushels of wheat under the homemade bed that the boys usually slept in, for safekeeping, and Brother Davis was no exception. I think Brother Davis paid her later, but I am sure she delivered more babies that she didn't collect pay for, than the ones she did." (John H. Haslem) Catherine's gift for nursing was a great blessing to the community. In her later years she also enjoyed genealogy and temple work, and sought out information about her Scottish ancestors: "She had such a desire to help others her spirit wouldn't give up. As she grew older she did more genealogy and temple work, and left a nice book of names of her ancestors, for others to do the temple work. What more could the Lord ask of one of his humble daughters. If all of her posterity can only follow in her footsteps, I am sure we will be OK in the next world, and live much happier here also." (John H. Haslem)
When Catherine was 56 years old she remarried: "Later, in searching the county records of Salt Lake County, we found where she married John Shepard, an Elder and Temple Worker, Aug. 6, 1903. He had a nice small home at about 2nd Ave. and K St., Salt Lake City. She had hoped to spend the rest of her life doing temple work as she had promised her father, but for some reason that she wouldn't tell her family, this marriage only lasted a few years. Then she came back to Vernal, and took up her midwife business again, and practiced that until her cancer disabled her."(John H. Haslem)
She returned to nursing in the Ashley Valley: Her daughter Katie remembers She continued this work until she got older and her health would not permit the hard work she had to do. She had many friends and after her nursing had ceased she often visited her former patients. After her family had grown and married she sold the ranch on Brush Creek and moved to a home her son George Henry had built her in Davis Ward, Naples Ward having been divided. She was close to the church and this made her very happy. Several times while I was staying with her the Relief Society sisters came to her home and held meetings so she could attend. She will long be remembered by the people of Davis Ward for her love and friendship, as well as her nursing. In her later life she came to live with my mother, Alice Southam Haslam. We all tried to make her happy in her declining years. (Katie H. Horrocks)
Catherine developed a skin cancer on her face, which eventually killed her. It was a painful and slow disease, but she tried to maintain a positive attitude. Her friends remembered: "She had a cancer coming on her nose and in her old age she had suffered much from pain and from sensitiveness to be thus afflicted. She never was one to complain and was medical aid and nurse to her self most of the time." Granddaughter Katie Horrocks adds: "Sometimes in the summer while she lived here my mother would have me go and stay with her to help care for her and I loved this opportunity, as she was always so cheerful and considerate. We would hitch up the horse and buggy and go to town. It was an all day affair as she had so many friends she just had to see and how they were getting along. I loved to visit with her and these good people. We grandchildren loved her very much. I can see her now rocking in her chair, humming a tune and piecing quilt blocks. She loved to live with us and thought a great deal of my father Joshua Haslam. In her later years her time was spent in temple work and research for her ancestors. She spent a lot of time and money in this great work. She always held some position in the church along with her nursing. She will long be remembered by her descendants for the wonderful life she lived."
Catherine's family continued to help care for her, as the cancer progressed. She spent her winters with her daughter Alice, and summers with her daughter Emma. Alice records: "After we moved to Vernal, my mother came to live with us. My sister Emma and I took care of her. She lived with Emma a month or so in the summer, and with us the rest of the year. She suffered with cancer for many years in her later life, although she tried to be happy and independent as she could be." It was at Emma's home that Catherine finally succumbed to the disease, and passed away on August 29, 1929. She was 86 years old. Her life had been both difficult and joyous. Despite numerous experiences with family illness and death, she had shown a positive and loving attitude. She is an example to her descendants of courage and faithful perseverance. Catherine Cameron was an extraordinary woman.
~Contributed to this site by Alice Boyd
LIFE STORY OF CATHERINE CAMERON SOUTHAM Written by Amy C. Gardiner and Dorothy S. Hein
Catherine Cameron Southam was born in Glasgow, Lanark, Scotland, the 21st of April 1847. She was the daughter of Margaret Fairgrieve and John Cameron. Her parents were converted and joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in Scotland November 20, 1845. They emigrated to the United States and settled in Patterson, New Jersey when Catherine was about four or five years old. The second child, James Alexander, was born at Patterson, Passaic, New Jersey the 22nd of September 1851. Later the family moved to St. Louis, Missouri and Catherine's mother, Margaret, died there March 5, 1855, at the age of 34 years, leaving Catherine age eight and James age four.
On October 15, 1855 Catherine's father married Mrs. Mary McFalls Tompson, Catherine's mother's sister. Mary died in St. Louis November 23, 1857.
John Cameron married a third wife, Alice Parkinson. Her first child, John, was born the 8th of September 1859. In the spring of 1861, John Cameron, with his family, started to emigrate to Utah with a company of Saints with Joseph Young as captain and Ancel Harmon as the assistant.
John Cameron had four yoke of oxen. When they had traveled for some days, he took sick and was not able to get out of his wagon. His wife was not well and he thought they would have to remain behind while the company went on, but Captain Young and assistant, Harmon, said they would help them until they were well and could keep up with the company that way. Catherine drove her father's four yoke of oxen with Oscar Young in charge to help her when needed.
When they arrived at the campgrounds of Florence, Nebraska (Winter Quarters), it was June 4, 1861. That night a baby girl was born to the wife of John Cameron. With the father and mother sick, a new baby and the little ones to care for, it made the responsibility very heavy for Catherine. That company, like many others, traveled all through the long hot summer over the prairie and mountains, reaching Salt Lake City in October 1861, where John Cameron made his home.
About 1862, John was called by the Presiding Bishop, Brother Hunter, to go to Round Valley to preside over a branch there. So he took his family and made another home there. On the 29th day of November, 1862, Catherine was married to George Southam in the Endowment House as his plural wife. The marriage was performed by D.H. Wells. George and his wives, Jane and Catherine, went to Round Valley to live for a time, and them to Morgan County and later to Evanston, Wyoming. George and Catherine became the parents of fourteen children, four of whom did not live to be named. George's first wife, Jane had only one child and it died in infancy in St. Louis, Missouri.
At one time, George Southam was called to go on a mission "without purse or scrip". Catherine was in bed with a new baby. They were poor, having no food stored and no one big enough to care for the money and children and home. But such was their faith that he went, leaving his wife and little ones in care of the Lord and the Saints. (Catherine C. Southam testified later in life that the Lord did provide and raise up friends in their time of need and she got along better than if her husband had been home.)
In the fall of 1885 George Southam sent his eldest son George Henry (Harry), out to Ashley Valley to look at the country in view of selecting a homestead. He said he wished to make his home in a Mormon settlement that his children might select life companions from among the Saints. Harry stayed in the valley that winter at the home of "Uncle" Jerry Hatch. On the 24th of December, 1885, while George Southam was crossing the Bear River, the ice broke and he and his team were drowned. His body went down under the ice and lay there five days while his family suffered and his friends searched in vain for the body. It seemed that they would have to give up the search, when the mother of George appeared to her thirteen year-old daughter, Alice, in the night. She told Alice where they could find the body of George. Alice told her mother about the visitation and said, "We will find Papa's body tomorrow." It happened like it had been shown to Alice in the night.
About a week before George was drowned, he had a dream that he was going on a mission. He told his wife he was either going on a foreign mission or be called to the other side of the veil. As they were living in a non-Mormon settlement, he told his wife that if he should die to be sure that he was laid away in his temple robes and among the Saints.
As early as 1871 Catherine began to assist and nurse those who were sick and in distress. She seemed to be a natural-born nurse. When she was a little girl she always wanted to have a number of dolls and play they were sick or injured so she could be the doctor and nurse and care for them. Her father always told her that she would be a nurse when she grew up. Those whom she visited and helped received such help and comfort that they never forgot the kind and loving heart, the skillful hands in sickness and the cheerful and sunny disposition of their friend. She assisted Dr. Harrison and Dr. Hawlker in Evanston, Wyoming while her own children were very young. She worked in the Deseret Hospital at intervals for about two years with Dr. Anderson and Dr. Mattie Paul Hughes, with Zina D. Young as Matron. (In 1911 she told her granddaughter, Alice Southam Cook, that she had assisted in the birth of over 1000 babies and most of them were without the aid of a physician.) She went out nursing several years after that.
In the fall of 1886, Catherine Southam together with her family moved to the Ashley Valley while the country was yet new and sparsely settled so that her children might grow up with the country and have plenty of chance to make homes for themselves.
The first year after the Salt Lake City Temple was dedicated, (1893) she was working in the temple, assisting her father to do the work for their dead relatives. She told her father that she thought she should have to give up the work among the sick as she felt it was almost more than she was able to stand- to take care of her family and be out with the sick so much. Her father said, "Catherine, you are all that your mother has to represent her here on earth and you are only fulfilling your patriarchal blessing where it says that you shall be as a well of living water in a desert, and people shall flow unto you and call you blessed." While still in the temple, some of the sisters came and told her that it had been made known to them that she was to be called and set apart to take care of the sick in the Uintah Stake as there was only one doctor and very little help for the sick at that time.
Catherine later went to Salt Lake City and took a course in obstetrics and spent a great deal of her time out among the sick. As she grew older and her health failed, she could hardly refuse the many friendswho were loath to give her up when they were sick. Many times she was out with the sick when more selfish people would have been nursing their own ailments. She would never fail to assist others in sickness while she lived if she was able to reach them. She always had a great desire to do all the temple work that she could for her kindred dead and to gather data and make a family record to leave to her posterity. As her sight failed she was unable to write and so she enlisted the services of a friend (Amy C. Gardiner) to write her family record and her history for her. She had a cancer coming on her nose and in her old age she had suffered much from pain and from sensitiveness to be thus afflicted. She never was one to complain and was medical aid and nurse to her self most of the time.
Catherine Cameron Southam died at the home of her daughter, Emma Holmes, the 30th of August, 1929 at the age of 82.
- Submitted by Marion C. Shupe to the Daughters of Utah Pioneer Library, Salt Lake City.
Contributed to this site by Alice Boyd
CATHERINE CAMERON SOUTHAM
Life Sketch from Alice Cook by John H. Haslem
Catherine Cameron Southam was born in Glasgow, Scotland, April 21, 1847, a daughter of Margaret Fairgrove and John Cameron. Her parents joined the L.D. Saints church in Scotland. They emigrated to the USA, and settled in Patterson, New Jersey, when Catherine was three or four years old. Their second child, James Alexander, was born at Patterson, New Jersey, Sept. 22, 1849 or 51. The family moved later to St. Louis, Missouri. In Patterson, they lived with Margaret's sister. John told his wife to not tell her sister they were Mormons as he knew their attitudes toward the Mormons. For a while she didn't, but she was so pleased with her membership that she finally told her sister, expecting her to be glad for her. Instead her sister ordered them out of their home. They moved to St. Louis, Missouri, where Grandma Margaret Fairgrove Cameron died 26 Feb. 1855, at the age of 34, leaving Catherine and a son, James Alexander Cameron. Later Grandpa Cameron married his first wife's sister, Mary McFall Tompson. She had one son by her first husband, named Heston, and then three children by John Cameron, named Mary, Robert, and Margaret. She died in St. Louis about April 6, 1857 or 1858. Her little girls died as infants before her death. Then John Cameron married a third wife, Alice Parkinson. Her first child, John, was born Sept. 9, 1859, in St. Louis. In the spring of 1861, John Cameron and family started to emigrate to Utah with a company of Saints. They had in their care a little nephew of Alice Parkinson's by the name of William Parkinson, who in later years became the noted Doctor William Parkinson of Logan, Utah. Joseph W. Young was Captain of the Company they came to Utah with. Ancel Harman assisted John Cameron drive his four yoke of oxen to draw the heavy wagon. When they had traveled several days, John Cameron took sick, and was not able to take over again. Catherine was a young girl, but she drove her father's oxen with Oscar Young's help when needed. They had traveled up the river from St. Louis to Florence, Nebraska in a boat. When they arrived at Council Bluffs, Iowa, Jannett was born June 9, 1861, and her father was still sick, and now the mother was sick also. It was a very heavy load for Catherine to care for her sick parents, and the smaller children. Their company of Saints, like all the others, traveled all the hot summer over prairies and mountains to Salt Lake Valley, and arrived in late October, 1861.
They settled in Salt Lake Valley, until called by Presiding Bishop Hunter to settle Round Valley, the first settlers in Round Valley. Later Bishop Hunter let him have a piece of land, and helped him when he needed help. On the 28th November 1862, Catherine was married to George Southam in the Endowment House as his plural wife. John Cameron was put in charge of Bishop Hunter's farm in Round Valley, and also farmed his own land. George Southam also worked for Bishop Hunter until later when they moved to Morgan, and later to Evanston, Wyoming. They became the parents of fourteen children. Four did not live to be named. The first wife, Jane Carter Southam only had one child, a son- Finas Henry Southam born Jan. 28, 1856 at St. Louis, Missouri, and died there Oct. 21, 1856. George Southam was a kind and devoted father, and also a faithful Latter Day Saint, and fulfilled his calling in the church to the best of his ability- all of his assignments, as well as living an exemplary life, In the fall of 1885, George Southam asked his son, George Henry (Harry) to go out to Ashley Valley to look for a new home, as he wished to raise his family in a Mormon community, where his children might select companions of Latter Day Saint members. Evanston had many good people, but not many Latter Day Saints, and the railroad brought many who were not so good. Harry stayed in Ashley Valley that winter, and lived most of the time with Uncle Jerry Hatch.
On the 24th of December, 1885, while crossing the Bear River with his team and wagon, the ice broke and drowned George Southam and his team. His body went under the ice, and wasn't found for five days while his family suffered, and friends searched in vain to locate his body. All had given up hope of finding him, when the mother of George Southam appeared to his daughter Alice (thirteen years old), in a dream. She told Alice her name was Lucy Hunt, and she was George Southam's mother, and she needed her son to help her. She also told Alice where to cut the ice, some mile or so from where he had drowned to find him. Alice said she had seen the willow branch that he was lodged in, in her dream just as plain as when they saw it, and found her father. Alice woke her mother in the night after her dream, and said, "We will find Papa tomorrow." James Williams said he would try just this one more place, and then they would give up the search, as it was so cold on Bear River, cutting ice. This time Alice showed them the right place to cut, and they were successful. About a week before George Southam was drowned, he had a dream that he was going on a mission. He told his wife that he was either going on a foreign mission or would be called to the other side of the veil, and if he did die to be sure he was buried in a Mormon Cemetery, and in his temple clothes.
As early as 1871, Catherine began to work with the sick, and seemed to be a natural-born nurse. When a small girl she always had her dolls sick so she could doctor and nurse them better. Her father told her she should be a nurse when she grew up. In 1871 she started helping the sick, and they appreciated it so much- her kindness, they never forgot her kindness. She assisted Dr. Harrison, and Dr. Hawlker in Evanston, Wyoming. While her children were very young, Aunt Jane (George Southam's first wife) tended the children. She was like a mother to the children. I have heard the older children say they loved Aunt Jane nearly as much as their mother. She raised no children of her own, and she loved children very much, so she was a great help to Catherine in rearing her big family while she worked out with the sick. She worked in the Deseret Hospital at intervals- about two years with Dr. Anderson and Mattie Paul Hughes, and with Zina D. Young. In 1911 she told her granddaughter, Alice Southam Cook, that she had assisted in over 1,000 births of babies, and she still practiced many years after that. Her fee for her work was $5.00, if they had the cash, and most of the people she helped didn't, so she would take her pay in wheat or whatever the poor people had that they could spare. John H. Haslem, her grandson from Alice Haslem, was with her one day when she was making her last call on Mrs. John J. Davis- he was the President of the Uintah Stake- and he told her he didn't have money, but wheat he would like to pay her with.
Wheat was next best to cash in those days. She got her seamless sacks she always carried under the seat in her two-wheeled cart (as she didn't have a buggy yet, but got one later to travel all over Ashley Valley, and Jensen, and Brush Creek). We filled the two sacks nearly full, as wheat was priced at $2.50 per sack. We were sweeping the wheat bin trying to fill the last sack, when she came on the scene, and said, "Brother Davis it that all the wheat you have?" He said yes, but he was about ready to thrash more wheat, so would soon fill his wheat bin again. She told Johny to dump that wheat back in under the boys' bed where we got it from. She said, "I never took the last kernel of wheat from anyone yet, and I won't take this from you." We drove away without any pay. It was customary to have twenty or thirty bushels of wheat under the homemade bed that the boys usually slept in, for safe keeping, and Brother Davis was no exception. I think Brother Davis paid her later, but I am sure she delivered more babies that she didn't collect pay for, than the ones she did.
Now back to her move from Evanston. In the fall of 1886, Catherine and her family, and her older daughter and her husband, Warren L. Allen, and their family, moved to Ashley Valley. This valley was yet new and sparsely settled, so her children could get homes of their own as they grew up. Before this move to Ashley Valley she was helping her father do the work for their dead the year the Salt Lake Temple opened. She told her father she would have to give up helping the sick, as she felt it was more than she could do while caring for her young family. Her father said, "Catherine, you are all that your mother has to represent her here on earth, and you are only fulfilling your Patriarchal Blessing where it says you will be as a Well of Living Water in a desert, and people shall flow to you, and call you blessed." While in the temple some of the sisters told her it had been made known to them that she was to be called and set apart to take care of the sick in Uintah Stake, as there was only one doctor, and very little help there for sick people. She was set apart by the President of the Church, and he told her if she would go to Ashley Valley, and honor her calling, he would promise her that her wheat bin would never be empty (which was a great promise in those days when wheat was so valuable, and her large family to feed). I, her grandson John H. Haslem, can testify that her children never went hungry or cold. They lived as well, or better than most other families in the valley. Everyone was poor out there those days, and all the neighbors wondered how she provided so well for her family. The Lord surely helped her.
She worked with the sick many years after she got a cancer that took eleven years to end her mortal life. She had such a desire to help others her spirit wouldn't give up. As she grew older she did more genealogy and temple work, and left a nice book of names of her ancestors, for others to do the temple work. What more could the Lord ask of one of his humble daughters. If all of her posterity can only follow in her footsteps, I am sure we will be OK in the next world, and live much happier here also. Later, in searching the county records of Salt Lake County, we found where she married John Shepard, an Elder and Temple Worker, Aug. 6, 1903. He had a nice small home at about 2nd Ave. and K St., Salt Lake City. She had hoped to spend the rest of her life doing temple work as she had promised her father, but for some reason that she wouldn't tell her family, this marriage only lasted a few years. Then she came back to Vernal, and took up her midwife business again, and practiced that until her cancer disabled her.
This is copied mostly from Alice Southam Cook's record she got from her father, Harry Southam, Grandma's oldest child. I have added some as I could remember, when I rode with her in her two-wheeled cart that she used to visit her sick patients in. I am 84 years old this year, and this is April 4, 1972.
~Contributed to this site by Alice Boyd
CATHERINE CAMERON SOUTHAM OUR PIONEER HERITAGE Pioneer Midwives
By Katie Haslam Horrocks
Catherine Cameron Southam, the daughter of John Alexander and Margaret Fairgrove Cameron, was born in Glasgow, Scotland April 21, 1847. Her parents were baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in their native land November 15, 1845, and emigrated to America in 1848. For four years they lived in Patterson, New Jersey and during this time Mrs. Cameron became very ill. Mormon elders administered to her, telling her that she would be healed and that a son would come to bless their home. In one year from that date this blessing was fulfilled and James A. Cameron was born. The family then made their way to St. Louis, Missouri and here the mother Margaret Fairgrove, died February 26, 1855 at the age of thirty-four years. Mr. Cameron married Mary McFall Thompson who died April 6, 1857. Later he married Alice Parkinson and of this union another son John Cameron was born. With his wife and the three children, Catherine, James, and John, Mr. Cameron proceeded to Florence, Nebraska, and, while camped there making preparations for the journey to Utah, a daughter Jeanette was born in a covered wagon June 9, 1861. He was assigned to drive a wagon pulled by two-yoke of oxen but worry and responsibility had so weakened his physical strength that he had to be assisted by members of his family in order to take care of the many duties the trip involved. Catherine drove the oxen most of the way and helped care for the younger children when they became ill. She was fourteen years of age at this time.
After arriving in Salt Lake Valley Mr. Cameron resumed his trade of boot and shoemaker until he was called to help with the settlement of Round Valley on the Weber River. It was during the residency there that Catherine became acquainted with George Southam and his wife, Jane Carter. They had joined the Church in Oxfordshire, England, and emigrated to America in 1854. These three people became good friends and as polygamy was being lived at that time Jane, unable to have children, sanctioned the marriage of her husband and Catherine so that he could have a family of his own. The ceremony took place in the Endowment House November 26, 1862. While in Morgan four children were born to Catherine, Mary Jane, George Henry, Eliza, and Alice.
Mr. Southam bought a small farm and worked for the Union Pacific R.R. then he moved Catherine, her children, and Jane to North Evanston, bought a house and all lived together. Prior to leaving Morgan he was called as a teamster for an oxtrain to bring in the last immigration company from Sweetwater, Wyoming, before the railroad was finished to Ogden. He was the oldest teamster.
It was always Mr. Southam's desire to have his family live in a Latter-day Saint community so he bought land in Randolph, Rich County; later this was disposed of and he bought a ranch on the Bear River, eight miles south and a few miles east of Evanston. While crossing the Bear River one Christmas Eve on his way home from feeding his stock, George Southam was drowned.
Alice Southam Haslam writes: "We lived at Evanston about fourteen years and while there we had lots of sickness and bad luck. Mother lost a baby, Ruth, born Feb. 3, 1873, who died 24th of Feb. the same year; then the year 1876 we all had smallpox and lost brother James. In 1877 we lost sister Eliza Ann who was nine years old; then after Father's death we lost brother John with pneumonia. Mother had lots of experience with sickness in her own family as well as helping with the sickness in our community.
During this time George Henry had taken up a homestead on Brush Creek at Vernal, Utah; when he heard of Father's death he came home, and helped on the ranch the following summer. In the fall he moved us to his farm on Brush Creek. My sister Mary Jane and her husband, Warren Allred, who had been living near us at Evanston and helping us on the ranch, moved to Vernal the same time we did. Mother started nursing to help provide for her family. She would hitch up the horse to the buggy and travel many miles to deliver a new baby or help in other sickness. No matter what the weather might be, or what time of night she was called, her pay would be a bushel of wheat or a sack of potatoes or whatever they might have she could use for her family. Sometimes they had nothing, but that was all right too if they needed her, and sometimes she stayed for several days. Our homestead was on Ashley Creek which was called Riverdale Ward at that time. Later they called it Naples, which is about three miles from Vernal. Much of her nursing was done in town as well as in her word. She nursed for the Davises, Cooks, Hartles, Merkleys, and many other families. Some of them felt they could not have a baby without the help of "Grandmother Southam". Later she traveled with Dr. Harry Coe Hullinger caring for the sick. She continued this work until she got older and her health would not permit the hard work she had to do. She had many friends and after her nursing had ceased she often visited her former patients.
After her family had grown and married she sold the ranch on Brush Creek and moved to a home her son George Henry had built her in Davis Ward, Naples Ward having been divided. She was close to the church and this made her very happy. Several times while I was staying with her the Relief Society sisters came to her home and held meetings so she could attend. She will long be remembered by the people of Davis Ward for her love and friendship as well as her nursing. In her later life she came to live with my mother. Alice Southam Haslam. We all tried to make her happy in her declining years.
Catherine Cameron Southam died August 29, 1929 at Vernal, Utah, at the age of eighty-two years.
~Contributed to this site by Alice Boyd
FAMILY GROUP RECORD OF GEORGE SOUTHAM AND CATHERINE CAMERON
GEORGE SOUTHAM was born 29 October 1830 in Neithrop, Banbury Parish, Oxfordshire, England to Justinian Southam and Lucy Hunt. His mother died when he was only one year old. George worked as a plush weaver in Banbury. He married Jane Carter 29 November 1854. They had one son, Finas Henry, born 28 January 1856 in St. Louis, Missouri. Finas Henry died 21 October 1856. George married Catherine Cameron 28 November 1862 in Salt Lake City, Utah. Catherine was born 21 April 1847 in Glasgow, Lanark, Scotland to John AlexanderCameron and Margaret Fairgrieve. George died 24 December 1885 in Evanston, Wyoming, and was buried in Randolph, Rich, Utah. Catherine died 17 August 1929 in Vernal, Uintah, Utah. George and Catherine had the following children:
1.Mary Jane, born 17 April 1865 in Round Valley, Morgan, Utah; marred Warren Leslie Allen; died 14 May 1913. 2.George Henry, born 5 May 1866 in Morgan, Morgan, Utah; married Elizabeth Jane Hacking; died 30 January 1959. 3.Eliza Ann, born 2 June 1868 in Evanston, Wyoming; died 28 December 1877. 4.Alice, born 13 April 1870 in Morgan, Utah; married Joshua Haslam 27 July 1887; died 6 March 1952. 5.Ruth, born 3 February 1873 in Evanston; died 24 February 1873. 6.James, born 18 August 1875 in Evanston; died 22 June 1876. 7.William, born 5 July 1877 in Evanston; married Mariah Pope 24 December 1901; died 20 July 1955. 8.Emma, born 15 May 1879 in Evanston; married Charles Holmes 21 May 1898. 9.Margaret, born 30 January 1882 in Morgan; married Don C. Pope 8 August 1900; died 8 Feb 1905. 10.John, born 13 April 1885 in Evanston; died as a child.
~IGI; Endowment House records.
Contributed to this site by Alice Boyd
Nelson (N.G.) Sowards. Born in Pike County, Kentucky, Jan 22, 1862, a son of Moses and Louisa Branham Sowards. He completed his elementary education in Kentucky and later attended private schools in penmanship and music. He came to Colorado in 1881, settling at Manassa where he taught school for eight years. He filled a two-year mission for the L.D.S. Church in the southern states. Following his mission, he came west again and attended B.Y.U. at Provo. He later attended the University of Utah and University of California.
He married Mary E. Gibson in the Salt Lake Temple in 1893. He came to Vernal in 1892 and served as principal of the Uintah Academy in 1892-93. He served as Uintah County superintendent of schools for seventeen years and during his office schools were first graded, then consolidated. He (taught) school for fifty years. He died Jan 14, 1946 at the age of 83 and is buried in the Gibson private cemetery. (note- Those buried in the Gibson Cemetery were later moved to the Vernal City Cemetery)
-From 'The Builders of Uintah' courtesy of the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers
Transcribed by Lori Reynolds Weinstein
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S
They lived in Patterson, New Jersey, with Margaret's sister. While there, Margaret became very ill. Doctors thought that she would die. Mormon elders administered to her, and she was given a blessing. They said that she would be healed and that a son would come to bless their home. A son, James, was born one year later, in 1851. They stayed in Patterson for four years, until: "In Patterson, they lived with Margaret's sister. John told his wife to not tell her sister they were Mormons as he knew their attitudes toward the Mormons. For a while she didn't, but she was so pleased with her membership that she finally told her sister, expecting her to be glad for her. Instead her sister ordered them out of their home." (John H. Haslem)
They moved to St. Louis, Missouri in 1852. The family had very little money: "When they arrived in St. Louis, it was probably Friday night. They had enough money to buy food for his wife and two children and himself for one week, or else enough to pay for lodging for his family. They decided that they must have a place to live, so they spent every cent they had for lodging. He went out and got himself a job at his trade of shoemaking, but he could not start work until Monday. Being a faithful man, he located the Church, which was about nineteen blocks from where they lived. Sunday morning on his way to Church he found 25 cents in paper money lying on the board sidewalk. There were people coming and going all the way, but by the time he had reached the church, he had found enough money to feed his family for one week." (George H. Southam)
Margaret became ill again. Catherine had become used to illness in the family. When she was a small girl she always pretended her dolls were sick so she could nurse them better. Her father told her that she should become a nurse when she grew up. In 1855, when Catherine was eight years old, her mother died of pneumonia. Later same that year, John married Mary McFall Tompson. John and Mary had two little girls, and a boy, who died young. Margaret and Mary, the little girls, died in St. Louis. Mary died two years later, in 1857. John was married again, the next year, to Alice Parkinson. A son, John, was born to them in 1859, in St. Louis.
In the spring of 1861, the Cameron family prepared to cross the plains to Utah with a company of Latter Day Saints. They had in their care a little nephew of Alice Parkinson's, William Parkinson. They traveled up the river by boat from St. Louis to Florence, Nebraska. While they were camped there, a daughter, Jannette, was born in a covered wagon.
The Captain of the company was Joseph W. Young. Ancel Harman assisted John Cameron in driving his two yoke of oxen to draw the heavy wagon. After they had traveled several days, John Cameron became sick with mountain fever, and was not able to drive the wagon: "The worry and hardship caused by this new responsibility, which he felt he was not fitted for, and the hardships of bringing his family across the plains, contributed to the circumstances which caused him to take Mountain Fever." (George H. Southam)John was very ill, and Alice was still recovering from childbirth. The family was worried that they would have to drop out of the wagon train, but it was decided that Catherine would drive the wagon, with help when needed. Captain Young and his assistant, Ancel Harmon, said they would help them until they were well and could keep up with the company that way. Catherine was only fourteen years old, but she drove her father's oxen with Oscar Young's help. It was a very heavy load for Catherine to care for her sick parents, and the smaller children, and to take the responsibility of driving the wagon, but she did it. Catherine drove the oxen most of the way. Their company of Saints traveled throughout the hot summer over the prairies and mountains to the Salt Lake Valley, and arrived there in late October 1861.
The family settled in Salt Lake Valley, until they were called by Presiding Bishop Hunter to settle Round Valley in northern Utah. They were the first settlers in Round Valley.
Catherine became friends with George and Jane Southam. Jane was unable to have children, so encouraged George to take a second wife. On the 28th November 1862, Catherine was married to George Southam in the Endowment House as his plural wife. Daniel H. Wells performed the wedding. Catherine was only 15 years old. George was 32 years old.
George Southam worked for Bishop Hunter in Round Valley, until they moved to Morgan, Utah. While in Morgan four children were born to Catherine and George: Mary Jane (1865), George Henry (1866), Eliza (1868), and Alice (1870). George Southam was a kind and devoted father, and also a faithful Latter Day Saint. George and Catherine became the parents of fourteen children, four of whom did not live to be named. While in Morgan, George was called to be a teamster for an oxtrain to bring the last wagon company from Sweetwater, Wyoming, before the railroad was finished: "At one time, George Southam was called to go on a mission "without purse or scrip". Catherine was in bed with a new baby. They were poor, having no food stored and no one big enough to care for the money and children and home. But such was their faith that he went, leaving his wife and little ones in care of the Lord and the Saints. (Catherine C. Southam testified later in life that the Lord did provide and raise up friends in their time of need and she got along better than if her husband had been home.)" (Amy Gardiner and Dorothy Hein)George bought a small farm and worked for the Union Pacific railroad, then he moved Catherine, her children, and Janeto North Evanston, where he bought a house and they all lived together.
Alice Southam Haslam writes: "We lived at Evanston about fourteen years and while there we had lots of sickness and bad luck. Mother lost a baby, Ruth, born Feb. 3, 1873, who died 24th of Feb. the same year; then the year 1876 we all had smallpox and lost brother James. In 1877 we lost sister Eliza Ann who was nine years old; then after Father's death we lost brother John with pneumonia. Mother had lots of experience with sickness in her own family as well as helping with the sickness in our community."
Catherine's experience with illness led to her interest in medicine: "As early as 1871, Catherine began to work with the sick, and seemed to be a natural-born nurse. When a small girl she always had her dolls sick so she could doctor and nurse them better. Her father told her she should be a nurse when she grew up. In 1871 she started helping the sick, and they appreciated it so much - her kindness, they never forgot her kindness. She assisted Dr. Harrison, and Dr. Hawlker in Evanston, Wyoming. While her children were very young, Aunt Jane (George Southam's first wife) tended the children. She was like a mother to the children. I have heard the older children say they loved Aunt Jane nearly as much as their mother. She raised no children of her own, and she loved children very much, so she was a great help to Catherine in rearing her big family while she worked out with the sick." (John H. Haslem)
More children were born to Catherine and George in Evanston: Ruth (1873), who died as a baby, James (1875) who died in 1876, William (1877), Emma (1879), Margaret (1882), and John (1885). George bought a ranch in Bear River and a home in town, so that the children could go to school. Catherine's father helped pay for their schooling. On Christmas Eve, 1885 while crossing the Bear River, George's team and wagon cracked through the ice, and George was drowned. The family and friends of the family searched for George's body under the ice: "His body went down under the ice and lay there five days while his family suffered and his friends searched in vain for the body. It seemed that they would have to give up the search, when the mother of George appeared to her thirteen year-old daughter, Alice, in the night. She told Alice where they could find the body of George. Alice told her mother about the visitation and said, "We will find Papa's body tomorrow." It happened like it had been shown to Alice in the night." (Amy Gardiner and Dorothy Hein)At the funeral, in the cold and icy weather, the baby John caught a cold, which became pneumonia, and he later died. This was a time of great sorrow for Catherine.
The family decided to move to Vernal, where George Henry, the oldest son, had a homestead. "During this time George Henry had taken up a homestead on Brush Creek at Vernal, Utah; when he heard of Father's death he came home, and helped on the ranch the following summer. In the fall he moved us to his farm on Brush Creek. The family moved to Vernal, in the Ashley Valley: "In the fall of 1886, Catherine and her family, and her older daughter and her husband, Warren L. Allen, and their family, moved to Ashley Valley. This valley was yet new and sparsely settled, so her children could get homes of their own as they grew up." (John H. Haslem)
The widowed Catherine struggled with her concerns about taking care of the family: "Before this move to Ashley Valley she was helping her father do the work for their dead the year the Salt Lake Temple opened. She told herfather she would have to give up helping the sick, as she felt it was more than she could do while caring for her young family. Her father said, "Catherine, you are all that your mother has to represent her here on earth, and you are only fulfilling your Patriarchal Blessing where it says you will be as a Well of Living Water in a desert, and people shall flow to you, and call you blessed." While in the temple some of the sisters told her it had been made known to them that she was to be called and set apart to take care of the sick in Uintah Stake, as there was only one doctor, and very little help there for sick people. She was set apart by the President of the Church, and he told her if she would go to Ashley Valley, and honor her calling, he would promise her that her wheat bin would never be empty (which was a great promise in those days when wheat was so valuable, and her large family to feed). I, her grandson John H. Haslem, can testify that her children never went hungry or cold. They lived as well, or better than most other families in the valley. Everyone was poor out there those days, and all the neighbors wondered how she provided so well for her family. The Lord surely helped her." (John H. Haslem)
Catherine started nursing to help provide for her family. Her daughter, Alice remembers: "She would hitch up the horse to the buggy and travel many miles to deliver a new baby or help in other sickness. No matter what the weather might be, or what time of night she was called, her pay would be a bushel of wheat or a sack of potatoes or whatever they might have she could use for her family. Sometimes they had nothing, but that was all right too if they needed her, and sometimes she stayed for several days. Our homestead was on Ashley Creek, which was called Riverdale Ward at that time. Later they called it Naples, which is about three miles from Vernal." Catherine worked to support her family through her nursing: "She worked in the Deseret Hospital at intervals- about two years with Dr. Anderson and Mattie Paul Hughes, and with Zina D. Young. In 1911 she told her granddaughter, Alice Southam Cook, that she had assisted in over 1,000 births of babies, and she still practiced many years after that. Her fee for her work was $5.00, if they had the cash, and most of the people she helped didn't, so she would take her pay in wheat or whatever the poor people had that they could spare. John H. Haslem, her grandson from Alice Haslem, was with her one day when she was making her last call on Mrs. John J. Davis &emdash; he was the President of the Uintah Stake &emdash; and he told her he didn't have money, but wheat he would like to pay her with. Wheat was next best to cash in those days. She got her seamless sacks she always carried under the seat in her two-wheeled cart (as she didn't have a buggy yet, but got one later to travel all over Ashley Valley, and Jensen, and Brush Creek). We filled the two sacks nearly full, as wheat was priced at $2.50 per sack. We were sweeping the wheat bin trying to fill the last sack, when she came on the scene, and said, "Brother Davis it that all the wheat you have?" He said yes, but he was about ready to thrash more wheat, so would soon fill his wheat bin again. She told Johny to dump that wheat back in under the boys' bed where we got it from. She said, "I never took the last kernel of wheat from anyone yet, and I won't take this from you." We drove away without any pay. It was customary to have twenty or thirty bushels of wheat under the homemade bed that the boys usually slept in, for safekeeping, and Brother Davis was no exception. I think Brother Davis paid her later, but I am sure she delivered more babies that she didn't collect pay for, than the ones she did." (John H. Haslem) Catherine's gift for nursing was a great blessing to the community. In her later years she also enjoyed genealogy and temple work, and sought out information about her Scottish ancestors: "She had such a desire to help others her spirit wouldn't give up. As she grew older she did more genealogy and temple work, and left a nice book of names of her ancestors, for others to do the temple work. What more could the Lord ask of one of his humble daughters. If all of her posterity can only follow in her footsteps, I am sure we will be OK in the next world, and live much happier here also." (John H. Haslem)
When Catherine was 56 years old she remarried: "Later, in searching the county records of Salt Lake County, we found where she married John Shepard, an Elder and Temple Worker, Aug. 6, 1903. He had a nice small home at about 2nd Ave. and K St., Salt Lake City. She had hoped to spend the rest of her life doing temple work as she had promised her father, but for some reason that she wouldn't tell her family, this marriage only lasted a few years. Then she came back to Vernal, and took up her midwife business again, and practiced that until her cancer disabled her."(John H. Haslem)
She returned to nursing in the Ashley Valley: Her daughter Katie remembers She continued this work until she got older and her health would not permit the hard work she had to do. She had many friends and after her nursing had ceased she often visited her former patients. After her family had grown and married she sold the ranch on Brush Creek and moved to a home her son George Henry had built her in Davis Ward, Naples Ward having been divided. She was close to the church and this made her very happy. Several times while I was staying with her the Relief Society sisters came to her home and held meetings so she could attend. She will long be remembered by the people of Davis Ward for her love and friendship, as well as her nursing. In her later life she came to live with my mother, Alice Southam Haslam. We all tried to make her happy in her declining years. (Katie H. Horrocks)
Catherine developed a skin cancer on her face, which eventually killed her. It was a painful and slow disease, but she tried to maintain a positive attitude. Her friends remembered: "She had a cancer coming on her nose and in her old age she had suffered much from pain and from sensitiveness to be thus afflicted. She never was one to complain and was medical aid and nurse to her self most of the time." Granddaughter Katie Horrocks adds: "Sometimes in the summer while she lived here my mother would have me go and stay with her to help care for her and I loved this opportunity, as she was always so cheerful and considerate. We would hitch up the horse and buggy and go to town. It was an all day affair as she had so many friends she just had to see and how they were getting along. I loved to visit with her and these good people. We grandchildren loved her very much. I can see her now rocking in her chair, humming a tune and piecing quilt blocks. She loved to live with us and thought a great deal of my father Joshua Haslam. In her later years her time was spent in temple work and research for her ancestors. She spent a lot of time and money in this great work. She always held some position in the church along with her nursing. She will long be remembered by her descendants for the wonderful life she lived."
Catherine's family continued to help care for her, as the cancer progressed. She spent her winters with her daughter Alice, and summers with her daughter Emma. Alice records: "After we moved to Vernal, my mother came to live with us. My sister Emma and I took care of her. She lived with Emma a month or so in the summer, and with us the rest of the year. She suffered with cancer for many years in her later life, although she tried to be happy and independent as she could be." It was at Emma's home that Catherine finally succumbed to the disease, and passed away on August 29, 1929. She was 86 years old. Her life had been both difficult and joyous. Despite numerous experiences with family illness and death, she had shown a positive and loving attitude. She is an example to her descendants of courage and faithful perseverance. Catherine Cameron was an extraordinary woman.
~Contributed to this site by Alice Boyd
LIFE STORY OF CATHERINE CAMERON SOUTHAM Written by Amy C. Gardiner and Dorothy S. Hein
Catherine Cameron Southam was born in Glasgow, Lanark, Scotland, the 21st of April 1847. She was the daughter of Margaret Fairgrieve and John Cameron. Her parents were converted and joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in Scotland November 20, 1845. They emigrated to the United States and settled in Patterson, New Jersey when Catherine was about four or five years old. The second child, James Alexander, was born at Patterson, Passaic, New Jersey the 22nd of September 1851. Later the family moved to St. Louis, Missouri and Catherine's mother, Margaret, died there March 5, 1855, at the age of 34 years, leaving Catherine age eight and James age four.
On October 15, 1855 Catherine's father married Mrs. Mary McFalls Tompson, Catherine's mother's sister. Mary died in St. Louis November 23, 1857.
John Cameron married a third wife, Alice Parkinson. Her first child, John, was born the 8th of September 1859. In the spring of 1861, John Cameron, with his family, started to emigrate to Utah with a company of Saints with Joseph Young as captain and Ancel Harmon as the assistant.
John Cameron had four yoke of oxen. When they had traveled for some days, he took sick and was not able to get out of his wagon. His wife was not well and he thought they would have to remain behind while the company went on, but Captain Young and assistant, Harmon, said they would help them until they were well and could keep up with the company that way. Catherine drove her father's four yoke of oxen with Oscar Young in charge to help her when needed.
When they arrived at the campgrounds of Florence, Nebraska (Winter Quarters), it was June 4, 1861. That night a baby girl was born to the wife of John Cameron. With the father and mother sick, a new baby and the little ones to care for, it made the responsibility very heavy for Catherine. That company, like many others, traveled all through the long hot summer over the prairie and mountains, reaching Salt Lake City in October 1861, where John Cameron made his home.
About 1862, John was called by the Presiding Bishop, Brother Hunter, to go to Round Valley to preside over a branch there. So he took his family and made another home there. On the 29th day of November, 1862, Catherine was married to George Southam in the Endowment House as his plural wife. The marriage was performed by D.H. Wells. George and his wives, Jane and Catherine, went to Round Valley to live for a time, and them to Morgan County and later to Evanston, Wyoming. George and Catherine became the parents of fourteen children, four of whom did not live to be named. George's first wife, Jane had only one child and it died in infancy in St. Louis, Missouri.
At one time, George Southam was called to go on a mission "without purse or scrip". Catherine was in bed with a new baby. They were poor, having no food stored and no one big enough to care for the money and children and home. But such was their faith that he went, leaving his wife and little ones in care of the Lord and the Saints. (Catherine C. Southam testified later in life that the Lord did provide and raise up friends in their time of need and she got along better than if her husband had been home.)
In the fall of 1885 George Southam sent his eldest son George Henry (Harry), out to Ashley Valley to look at the country in view of selecting a homestead. He said he wished to make his home in a Mormon settlement that his children might select life companions from among the Saints. Harry stayed in the valley that winter at the home of "Uncle" Jerry Hatch. On the 24th of December, 1885, while George Southam was crossing the Bear River, the ice broke and he and his team were drowned. His body went down under the ice and lay there five days while his family suffered and his friends searched in vain for the body. It seemed that they would have to give up the search, when the mother of George appeared to her thirteen year-old daughter, Alice, in the night. She told Alice where they could find the body of George. Alice told her mother about the visitation and said, "We will find Papa's body tomorrow." It happened like it had been shown to Alice in the night.
About a week before George was drowned, he had a dream that he was going on a mission. He told his wife he was either going on a foreign mission or be called to the other side of the veil. As they were living in a non-Mormon settlement, he told his wife that if he should die to be sure that he was laid away in his temple robes and among the Saints.
As early as 1871 Catherine began to assist and nurse those who were sick and in distress. She seemed to be a natural-born nurse. When she was a little girl she always wanted to have a number of dolls and play they were sick or injured so she could be the doctor and nurse and care for them. Her father always told her that she would be a nurse when she grew up. Those whom she visited and helped received such help and comfort that they never forgot the kind and loving heart, the skillful hands in sickness and the cheerful and sunny disposition of their friend. She assisted Dr. Harrison and Dr. Hawlker in Evanston, Wyoming while her own children were very young. She worked in the Deseret Hospital at intervals for about two years with Dr. Anderson and Dr. Mattie Paul Hughes, with Zina D. Young as Matron. (In 1911 she told her granddaughter, Alice Southam Cook, that she had assisted in the birth of over 1000 babies and most of them were without the aid of a physician.) She went out nursing several years after that.
In the fall of 1886, Catherine Southam together with her family moved to the Ashley Valley while the country was yet new and sparsely settled so that her children might grow up with the country and have plenty of chance to make homes for themselves.
The first year after the Salt Lake City Temple was dedicated, (1893) she was working in the temple, assisting her father to do the work for their dead relatives. She told her father that she thought she should have to give up the work among the sick as she felt it was almost more than she was able to stand- to take care of her family and be out with the sick so much. Her father said, "Catherine, you are all that your mother has to represent her here on earth and you are only fulfilling your patriarchal blessing where it says that you shall be as a well of living water in a desert, and people shall flow unto you and call you blessed." While still in the temple, some of the sisters came and told her that it had been made known to them that she was to be called and set apart to take care of the sick in the Uintah Stake as there was only one doctor and very little help for the sick at that time.
Catherine later went to Salt Lake City and took a course in obstetrics and spent a great deal of her time out among the sick. As she grew older and her health failed, she could hardly refuse the many friendswho were loath to give her up when they were sick. Many times she was out with the sick when more selfish people would have been nursing their own ailments. She would never fail to assist others in sickness while she lived if she was able to reach them. She always had a great desire to do all the temple work that she could for her kindred dead and to gather data and make a family record to leave to her posterity. As her sight failed she was unable to write and so she enlisted the services of a friend (Amy C. Gardiner) to write her family record and her history for her. She had a cancer coming on her nose and in her old age she had suffered much from pain and from sensitiveness to be thus afflicted. She never was one to complain and was medical aid and nurse to her self most of the time.
Catherine Cameron Southam died at the home of her daughter, Emma Holmes, the 30th of August, 1929 at the age of 82.
- Submitted by Marion C. Shupe to the Daughters of Utah Pioneer Library, Salt Lake City.
Contributed to this site by Alice Boyd
CATHERINE CAMERON SOUTHAM
Life Sketch from Alice Cook by John H. Haslem
Catherine Cameron Southam was born in Glasgow, Scotland, April 21, 1847, a daughter of Margaret Fairgrove and John Cameron. Her parents joined the L.D. Saints church in Scotland. They emigrated to the USA, and settled in Patterson, New Jersey, when Catherine was three or four years old. Their second child, James Alexander, was born at Patterson, New Jersey, Sept. 22, 1849 or 51. The family moved later to St. Louis, Missouri. In Patterson, they lived with Margaret's sister. John told his wife to not tell her sister they were Mormons as he knew their attitudes toward the Mormons. For a while she didn't, but she was so pleased with her membership that she finally told her sister, expecting her to be glad for her. Instead her sister ordered them out of their home. They moved to St. Louis, Missouri, where Grandma Margaret Fairgrove Cameron died 26 Feb. 1855, at the age of 34, leaving Catherine and a son, James Alexander Cameron. Later Grandpa Cameron married his first wife's sister, Mary McFall Tompson. She had one son by her first husband, named Heston, and then three children by John Cameron, named Mary, Robert, and Margaret. She died in St. Louis about April 6, 1857 or 1858. Her little girls died as infants before her death. Then John Cameron married a third wife, Alice Parkinson. Her first child, John, was born Sept. 9, 1859, in St. Louis. In the spring of 1861, John Cameron and family started to emigrate to Utah with a company of Saints. They had in their care a little nephew of Alice Parkinson's by the name of William Parkinson, who in later years became the noted Doctor William Parkinson of Logan, Utah. Joseph W. Young was Captain of the Company they came to Utah with. Ancel Harman assisted John Cameron drive his four yoke of oxen to draw the heavy wagon. When they had traveled several days, John Cameron took sick, and was not able to take over again. Catherine was a young girl, but she drove her father's oxen with Oscar Young's help when needed. They had traveled up the river from St. Louis to Florence, Nebraska in a boat. When they arrived at Council Bluffs, Iowa, Jannett was born June 9, 1861, and her father was still sick, and now the mother was sick also. It was a very heavy load for Catherine to care for her sick parents, and the smaller children. Their company of Saints, like all the others, traveled all the hot summer over prairies and mountains to Salt Lake Valley, and arrived in late October, 1861.
They settled in Salt Lake Valley, until called by Presiding Bishop Hunter to settle Round Valley, the first settlers in Round Valley. Later Bishop Hunter let him have a piece of land, and helped him when he needed help. On the 28th November 1862, Catherine was married to George Southam in the Endowment House as his plural wife. John Cameron was put in charge of Bishop Hunter's farm in Round Valley, and also farmed his own land. George Southam also worked for Bishop Hunter until later when they moved to Morgan, and later to Evanston, Wyoming. They became the parents of fourteen children. Four did not live to be named. The first wife, Jane Carter Southam only had one child, a son- Finas Henry Southam born Jan. 28, 1856 at St. Louis, Missouri, and died there Oct. 21, 1856. George Southam was a kind and devoted father, and also a faithful Latter Day Saint, and fulfilled his calling in the church to the best of his ability- all of his assignments, as well as living an exemplary life, In the fall of 1885, George Southam asked his son, George Henry (Harry) to go out to Ashley Valley to look for a new home, as he wished to raise his family in a Mormon community, where his children might select companions of Latter Day Saint members. Evanston had many good people, but not many Latter Day Saints, and the railroad brought many who were not so good. Harry stayed in Ashley Valley that winter, and lived most of the time with Uncle Jerry Hatch.
On the 24th of December, 1885, while crossing the Bear River with his team and wagon, the ice broke and drowned George Southam and his team. His body went under the ice, and wasn't found for five days while his family suffered, and friends searched in vain to locate his body. All had given up hope of finding him, when the mother of George Southam appeared to his daughter Alice (thirteen years old), in a dream. She told Alice her name was Lucy Hunt, and she was George Southam's mother, and she needed her son to help her. She also told Alice where to cut the ice, some mile or so from where he had drowned to find him. Alice said she had seen the willow branch that he was lodged in, in her dream just as plain as when they saw it, and found her father. Alice woke her mother in the night after her dream, and said, "We will find Papa tomorrow." James Williams said he would try just this one more place, and then they would give up the search, as it was so cold on Bear River, cutting ice. This time Alice showed them the right place to cut, and they were successful. About a week before George Southam was drowned, he had a dream that he was going on a mission. He told his wife that he was either going on a foreign mission or would be called to the other side of the veil, and if he did die to be sure he was buried in a Mormon Cemetery, and in his temple clothes.
As early as 1871, Catherine began to work with the sick, and seemed to be a natural-born nurse. When a small girl she always had her dolls sick so she could doctor and nurse them better. Her father told her she should be a nurse when she grew up. In 1871 she started helping the sick, and they appreciated it so much- her kindness, they never forgot her kindness. She assisted Dr. Harrison, and Dr. Hawlker in Evanston, Wyoming. While her children were very young, Aunt Jane (George Southam's first wife) tended the children. She was like a mother to the children. I have heard the older children say they loved Aunt Jane nearly as much as their mother. She raised no children of her own, and she loved children very much, so she was a great help to Catherine in rearing her big family while she worked out with the sick. She worked in the Deseret Hospital at intervals- about two years with Dr. Anderson and Mattie Paul Hughes, and with Zina D. Young. In 1911 she told her granddaughter, Alice Southam Cook, that she had assisted in over 1,000 births of babies, and she still practiced many years after that. Her fee for her work was $5.00, if they had the cash, and most of the people she helped didn't, so she would take her pay in wheat or whatever the poor people had that they could spare. John H. Haslem, her grandson from Alice Haslem, was with her one day when she was making her last call on Mrs. John J. Davis- he was the President of the Uintah Stake- and he told her he didn't have money, but wheat he would like to pay her with.
Wheat was next best to cash in those days. She got her seamless sacks she always carried under the seat in her two-wheeled cart (as she didn't have a buggy yet, but got one later to travel all over Ashley Valley, and Jensen, and Brush Creek). We filled the two sacks nearly full, as wheat was priced at $2.50 per sack. We were sweeping the wheat bin trying to fill the last sack, when she came on the scene, and said, "Brother Davis it that all the wheat you have?" He said yes, but he was about ready to thrash more wheat, so would soon fill his wheat bin again. She told Johny to dump that wheat back in under the boys' bed where we got it from. She said, "I never took the last kernel of wheat from anyone yet, and I won't take this from you." We drove away without any pay. It was customary to have twenty or thirty bushels of wheat under the homemade bed that the boys usually slept in, for safe keeping, and Brother Davis was no exception. I think Brother Davis paid her later, but I am sure she delivered more babies that she didn't collect pay for, than the ones she did.
Now back to her move from Evanston. In the fall of 1886, Catherine and her family, and her older daughter and her husband, Warren L. Allen, and their family, moved to Ashley Valley. This valley was yet new and sparsely settled, so her children could get homes of their own as they grew up. Before this move to Ashley Valley she was helping her father do the work for their dead the year the Salt Lake Temple opened. She told her father she would have to give up helping the sick, as she felt it was more than she could do while caring for her young family. Her father said, "Catherine, you are all that your mother has to represent her here on earth, and you are only fulfilling your Patriarchal Blessing where it says you will be as a Well of Living Water in a desert, and people shall flow to you, and call you blessed." While in the temple some of the sisters told her it had been made known to them that she was to be called and set apart to take care of the sick in Uintah Stake, as there was only one doctor, and very little help there for sick people. She was set apart by the President of the Church, and he told her if she would go to Ashley Valley, and honor her calling, he would promise her that her wheat bin would never be empty (which was a great promise in those days when wheat was so valuable, and her large family to feed). I, her grandson John H. Haslem, can testify that her children never went hungry or cold. They lived as well, or better than most other families in the valley. Everyone was poor out there those days, and all the neighbors wondered how she provided so well for her family. The Lord surely helped her.
She worked with the sick many years after she got a cancer that took eleven years to end her mortal life. She had such a desire to help others her spirit wouldn't give up. As she grew older she did more genealogy and temple work, and left a nice book of names of her ancestors, for others to do the temple work. What more could the Lord ask of one of his humble daughters. If all of her posterity can only follow in her footsteps, I am sure we will be OK in the next world, and live much happier here also. Later, in searching the county records of Salt Lake County, we found where she married John Shepard, an Elder and Temple Worker, Aug. 6, 1903. He had a nice small home at about 2nd Ave. and K St., Salt Lake City. She had hoped to spend the rest of her life doing temple work as she had promised her father, but for some reason that she wouldn't tell her family, this marriage only lasted a few years. Then she came back to Vernal, and took up her midwife business again, and practiced that until her cancer disabled her.
This is copied mostly from Alice Southam Cook's record she got from her father, Harry Southam, Grandma's oldest child. I have added some as I could remember, when I rode with her in her two-wheeled cart that she used to visit her sick patients in. I am 84 years old this year, and this is April 4, 1972.
~Contributed to this site by Alice Boyd
CATHERINE CAMERON SOUTHAM OUR PIONEER HERITAGE Pioneer Midwives
By Katie Haslam Horrocks
Catherine Cameron Southam, the daughter of John Alexander and Margaret Fairgrove Cameron, was born in Glasgow, Scotland April 21, 1847. Her parents were baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in their native land November 15, 1845, and emigrated to America in 1848. For four years they lived in Patterson, New Jersey and during this time Mrs. Cameron became very ill. Mormon elders administered to her, telling her that she would be healed and that a son would come to bless their home. In one year from that date this blessing was fulfilled and James A. Cameron was born. The family then made their way to St. Louis, Missouri and here the mother Margaret Fairgrove, died February 26, 1855 at the age of thirty-four years. Mr. Cameron married Mary McFall Thompson who died April 6, 1857. Later he married Alice Parkinson and of this union another son John Cameron was born. With his wife and the three children, Catherine, James, and John, Mr. Cameron proceeded to Florence, Nebraska, and, while camped there making preparations for the journey to Utah, a daughter Jeanette was born in a covered wagon June 9, 1861. He was assigned to drive a wagon pulled by two-yoke of oxen but worry and responsibility had so weakened his physical strength that he had to be assisted by members of his family in order to take care of the many duties the trip involved. Catherine drove the oxen most of the way and helped care for the younger children when they became ill. She was fourteen years of age at this time.
After arriving in Salt Lake Valley Mr. Cameron resumed his trade of boot and shoemaker until he was called to help with the settlement of Round Valley on the Weber River. It was during the residency there that Catherine became acquainted with George Southam and his wife, Jane Carter. They had joined the Church in Oxfordshire, England, and emigrated to America in 1854. These three people became good friends and as polygamy was being lived at that time Jane, unable to have children, sanctioned the marriage of her husband and Catherine so that he could have a family of his own. The ceremony took place in the Endowment House November 26, 1862. While in Morgan four children were born to Catherine, Mary Jane, George Henry, Eliza, and Alice.
Mr. Southam bought a small farm and worked for the Union Pacific R.R. then he moved Catherine, her children, and Jane to North Evanston, bought a house and all lived together. Prior to leaving Morgan he was called as a teamster for an oxtrain to bring in the last immigration company from Sweetwater, Wyoming, before the railroad was finished to Ogden. He was the oldest teamster.
It was always Mr. Southam's desire to have his family live in a Latter-day Saint community so he bought land in Randolph, Rich County; later this was disposed of and he bought a ranch on the Bear River, eight miles south and a few miles east of Evanston. While crossing the Bear River one Christmas Eve on his way home from feeding his stock, George Southam was drowned.
Alice Southam Haslam writes: "We lived at Evanston about fourteen years and while there we had lots of sickness and bad luck. Mother lost a baby, Ruth, born Feb. 3, 1873, who died 24th of Feb. the same year; then the year 1876 we all had smallpox and lost brother James. In 1877 we lost sister Eliza Ann who was nine years old; then after Father's death we lost brother John with pneumonia. Mother had lots of experience with sickness in her own family as well as helping with the sickness in our community.
During this time George Henry had taken up a homestead on Brush Creek at Vernal, Utah; when he heard of Father's death he came home, and helped on the ranch the following summer. In the fall he moved us to his farm on Brush Creek. My sister Mary Jane and her husband, Warren Allred, who had been living near us at Evanston and helping us on the ranch, moved to Vernal the same time we did. Mother started nursing to help provide for her family. She would hitch up the horse to the buggy and travel many miles to deliver a new baby or help in other sickness. No matter what the weather might be, or what time of night she was called, her pay would be a bushel of wheat or a sack of potatoes or whatever they might have she could use for her family. Sometimes they had nothing, but that was all right too if they needed her, and sometimes she stayed for several days. Our homestead was on Ashley Creek which was called Riverdale Ward at that time. Later they called it Naples, which is about three miles from Vernal. Much of her nursing was done in town as well as in her word. She nursed for the Davises, Cooks, Hartles, Merkleys, and many other families. Some of them felt they could not have a baby without the help of "Grandmother Southam". Later she traveled with Dr. Harry Coe Hullinger caring for the sick. She continued this work until she got older and her health would not permit the hard work she had to do. She had many friends and after her nursing had ceased she often visited her former patients.
After her family had grown and married she sold the ranch on Brush Creek and moved to a home her son George Henry had built her in Davis Ward, Naples Ward having been divided. She was close to the church and this made her very happy. Several times while I was staying with her the Relief Society sisters came to her home and held meetings so she could attend. She will long be remembered by the people of Davis Ward for her love and friendship as well as her nursing. In her later life she came to live with my mother. Alice Southam Haslam. We all tried to make her happy in her declining years.
Catherine Cameron Southam died August 29, 1929 at Vernal, Utah, at the age of eighty-two years.
~Contributed to this site by Alice Boyd
FAMILY GROUP RECORD OF GEORGE SOUTHAM AND CATHERINE CAMERON
GEORGE SOUTHAM was born 29 October 1830 in Neithrop, Banbury Parish, Oxfordshire, England to Justinian Southam and Lucy Hunt. His mother died when he was only one year old. George worked as a plush weaver in Banbury. He married Jane Carter 29 November 1854. They had one son, Finas Henry, born 28 January 1856 in St. Louis, Missouri. Finas Henry died 21 October 1856. George married Catherine Cameron 28 November 1862 in Salt Lake City, Utah. Catherine was born 21 April 1847 in Glasgow, Lanark, Scotland to John AlexanderCameron and Margaret Fairgrieve. George died 24 December 1885 in Evanston, Wyoming, and was buried in Randolph, Rich, Utah. Catherine died 17 August 1929 in Vernal, Uintah, Utah. George and Catherine had the following children:
1.Mary Jane, born 17 April 1865 in Round Valley, Morgan, Utah; marred Warren Leslie Allen; died 14 May 1913. 2.George Henry, born 5 May 1866 in Morgan, Morgan, Utah; married Elizabeth Jane Hacking; died 30 January 1959. 3.Eliza Ann, born 2 June 1868 in Evanston, Wyoming; died 28 December 1877. 4.Alice, born 13 April 1870 in Morgan, Utah; married Joshua Haslam 27 July 1887; died 6 March 1952. 5.Ruth, born 3 February 1873 in Evanston; died 24 February 1873. 6.James, born 18 August 1875 in Evanston; died 22 June 1876. 7.William, born 5 July 1877 in Evanston; married Mariah Pope 24 December 1901; died 20 July 1955. 8.Emma, born 15 May 1879 in Evanston; married Charles Holmes 21 May 1898. 9.Margaret, born 30 January 1882 in Morgan; married Don C. Pope 8 August 1900; died 8 Feb 1905. 10.John, born 13 April 1885 in Evanston; died as a child.
~IGI; Endowment House records.
Contributed to this site by Alice Boyd
Nelson (N.G.) Sowards. Born in Pike County, Kentucky, Jan 22, 1862, a son of Moses and Louisa Branham Sowards. He completed his elementary education in Kentucky and later attended private schools in penmanship and music. He came to Colorado in 1881, settling at Manassa where he taught school for eight years. He filled a two-year mission for the L.D.S. Church in the southern states. Following his mission, he came west again and attended B.Y.U. at Provo. He later attended the University of Utah and University of California.
He married Mary E. Gibson in the Salt Lake Temple in 1893. He came to Vernal in 1892 and served as principal of the Uintah Academy in 1892-93. He served as Uintah County superintendent of schools for seventeen years and during his office schools were first graded, then consolidated. He (taught) school for fifty years. He died Jan 14, 1946 at the age of 83 and is buried in the Gibson private cemetery. (note- Those buried in the Gibson Cemetery were later moved to the Vernal City Cemetery)
-From 'The Builders of Uintah' courtesy of the Daughters of the Utah Pioneers
Transcribed by Lori Reynolds Weinstein