Gladys Barker Westwood Life Sketch

Written 1 January 1967

By Clarence S. Barker

Gladys Barker Westwood was born December 5, 1894 at about 475 East South Temple, Salt Lake City to hard-working and religious parents, Frederick Ellis and Cecilia Sharp Barker.

She was a beautiful, talented, loving, and unselfish person who brought happiness wherever she went.

The Barker home at the time of her birth was on land which had been taken up in pioneer days by Gladys' grandfather, Joseph Sharp. Later her father had a story and a half gabled frame home built at 272 Fourth Ave. A twin house next east was occupied by her uncle and aunt, Joseph C. and Janie Bennett Sharp. Her maternal grandmother, Margaret Condie Sharp, a licensed midwife and non-graduate medical practitioner, had delivered Gladyses she delivered Gladys four brothers and one sister.

Her eldest brother, Frederick George, became an expert shorthand reporter, wrote condensed versions of Shakespeare's plays and the Book of Mormon and was Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Utah at the time of his death, January 2, 1946.

Her older sister, Lucile, taught in the public schools of Idaho and Salt Lake City most of her life. She died December 4, 1949.

Alma Sharp (A I) Barker, next yojnger to Gladys, worked as an accountant much of his life. At this date he lives in Los Angeles where he had a large posterity of talented and upright individuals.

Joseph Ira, next younger, graduated from the University of Utah in mining engineering and died in a mill accident at the Utah Af>ex Mine, September 12, 1924.

Clarence Sharp, youngest in the family, graduated from the University of iJtatt Irt education and English and was a newspaper reporter. At this date he trad two sons and two daughters and five grandchildren.

Frederick Ellis Barker, was born May 6, 1861 at Mound Fort, now part of Ogden, son of Simon and Jemima Newey Barker. Simon was a son of George Barker who with his brothers Frederick and James and sister Hariet and their families had come to this country in 1830 from the Shelfanger and Dh area of Norfolk, England. Simon's mother, Sarah Gerrard Barker, died of smallpox aboard ship crossing the Atlantic.

The Barkers settled not far from the shores of Lake Ontario In and about Watertown/ New York. George Barker and the others heard the Gospel in 1844 from Jesse W. Crosbie, Benjamin Brown, and Dimick Huntington. Most of them joined the Church that year. George was baptized earlier, in September 1842. In 1844 George traveled west to Nauvoo, III., arriving there shortly after the martyrdom of Joseph and Hyrum Smith.

George Barker assisted during this sorrowful time by standing guard while others were completing the Temple during the winter of 1844 - 1845. In 1845 he made his way back to his family and in 1846 they moved west. The family was full of faith. Mary Ann Barker, a cousin, had the gift of tongues and through this and the interpretation, it was revealed to them before the martyrdom that their Prophet Joseph would be assassinated and that many of the Barker family would journey westward with the Church to the Rocky Mountains.

When the family arrived at Nauvoo, they found it almost deserted because of the great exodus. They viewed the Temple and even climbed to its roof. The same day they crossed the Mississippi with their horse teams. They stayed a short time at Mount Pisgah, then, following the counsel of their leaders, made their way to Indian Prairie, now Lebanon, Iowa, where they recuperated and were able to fit themselves out for the journey to the mountains. .

During the summer and early autumn of 1849, they crossed the plains and mountains in the Alien Taylor company and arrived in Salt Lake City, October 20, 1849. After spending one day, Sunday, and hearing Orson Pratt preach, they again followed counsel of leaders and went north to what became Ogden. They spent their first winter at the junction of the Ogden and Weber Rivers. A few years later, in the early sixties, the Frederick Barker family moved to what is now North Ogden where they helped pioneer the area which became famed for its fine fruit.

Simon Barker lived all the rest of his life in the Mound Fort area where Frederick El I is was born May 6, 1861, third among three daughters and two sons. Frederick and his elder brother, George Simon, learned farming and craftsmanship required at that time. When a family needed a home they bought the lumber and other materials and they and their neighbors built it.

Simon participated in the Echo Canyon campaign resisting the approach of Johnston's Army and the following spring moved southward as far as Provo but with a few other brave companions returned to care for the crops they had planted.

Fred and George aspired to higher paid employment. They bought a book on Isaac Pitman shorthand and in the evenings and during the winters they learned shorthand. They heard that shorthand writers held their pens between their first and second fingers. Fred always held his pen this way writing shorthand at which he became expert, although he held his pen in the conventional way to write longhand.

4H-eber:Ji Grant, a member of the Council of the Twelve and later the seventh . ••.•-•••. ••-

president of the Church, met Fred in Ogden and hired him to come to Salt Lake City'

as his secretary. Fred later became a district court reporter. He studied law and

became a member of the Bar. He was widely read and spoke and wrote excellent . .

English although he had only elementary school formal training.

Fred liked to report Sunday afternoon meetings in the Tabernacle both because of his love of the Gospel and his desire to improve his speed writing shorthand by progressively abbreviating the characters which he wrote. At the reporters' table he met Cecilia Sharp who also was studying shorthand. They were married June 26, 1889 in the Logon Temple where Fred had filled a mission as a clerk - recorder.

Cecilia was small physically but possessed a buoyant, lovable personality. She loved to tell stories. Among those who many years later bore fervent testimony as to her ability to teach and tell stories was Levi Edgar Young, one of her pupils probably in the old Twentieth Ward School. Elder Young later was a member of the First Council of the Seventy, president of the Temple Square Mission many years and for many years Professor of Western History at the University of Utah.

Cecilia taught in the public schools of Salt Lake City seven years. In her own life sketch, Cecilia recorded: "I attended district school until 1 was 13 years of age, when . I had an opportunity of becoming a normal student at the Deseret University (now the University of Utah) for about two years, from which I graduated. I have my mother to thank for this opportunity as she washed for Mrs. T. B. Lewis so that she might influence her husband to secure that opportunity for me. "

At the university she was a student of Maud May Babcock, head of the drama and-speech department. For many years Cecilia gave readings of Bobby Burns' poetry. Dickens' Christmas Carol and other selections.

But early next morning/ the Sharp wagon train pulled out. Word of their "trimming" preceded them and they had no trouble from outlaws. When they pulled into Salt Lake City, the bad news had arrived many hours before. President Young came to greet them and inquire why they had not heeded his warning. They took him to their last wagon, pulled out a can of axle grease, skimmed off the top and there was the gold dust!

The Sharps were from a very religious community in Scotland. They didn't know one card from another and by prearrangement with a gambler from Salt Lake City (who had traveled with them as far as Corinne) they had become drunk on colored water and pretended to lose their gold dust.

These three Sharp brothers took up land in Salt Lake City. A plat in the office of the State Historical Society, shows that John had the entire block now bounded by South Temple, E Street, 1st Ave., and D Street. Adam took the east half of the block immediately east and Joseph took the west half of the block. The building now at the northwest corner of South Temple and E Street once was known as the Sharp Flat (apartment house.)

Janet Condie, born August 4, 1831 at Clackmannan, Scotland, was the first wife of Joseph Sharp. They were married at Grovi Diggings (coal mining camp) near St. Louis, Mo., August 25, 1848. They had a son and four daughters. Janet died January 19, 1859 in Salt Lake City. Joseph had married Margaret Condie, younger sister to Janet, March 13, 1857 as his second wife. They had a daughter, Agnes, who died at the age of 4; a son, Joseph Condie Sharp; and Cecilia Sharp.

After her husband's death, Margaret at the age of 25 had responsibility for rearing her own children and the younger children of her elder sister. Margaret had crossed the plains to Salt Lake Valley, walking much of the way, as a girl of 13. She arrived in = the valley with her parents, Thomas and Helen Sharp Condie, and brothers and sisters, September 2, 1852.

After the marriage of Cecilia to Frederick Ellis Barker, Margaret Condie Sharp lived in the Barker home until she died June 30, 1928. She was a woman of great faith and energy. She spent much of her later life as an ordained Temple worker. It was in this family, reared in an atmosphere of pioneer thrift and hardship that Gladys was born. Food was not wasted. The children were served only what they would eat. They were trained to waste no food and to care meticulously for their clothing.

Gladys attended the Lowell and the Lafayette schools. She was an excellent student.

She attended M.I.A., sang in the ward choir, played in the old Eighteenth Ward

Dramatic Company once in the leading role_; and was a member of the B. G. Club of - \*^.

young women, which as of 1967 still was active. • - -

She studied shorthand at what is now the West High School and at the old L.D.S. High School and worked as a stenographer for Heber J. Grant. Her father was called on a mission to Australia in 1898, when Gladys was Just four years old. The father was made mission president shortly after his arrival in Australia. After completing his term as mission president, he returned to Utah in company with two elders who had served in New Zealand by way of Palestine, Egypt, Italy, France, and England. During his absence James L. Barker, second cousin to Frederick Ellis, lived in the home while attending the University of Utah. He helped the family considerably, serving almost

•: ^^- ,;»^i ,*» _;, as-axfather to the young children. James L. later became head of the Modern languages Department at the University of Utah/ President of the Argentine and the French missions and author of a variety of books dealing with the history of the early Christian Church. James L. was a gifted linguist.

Gladys had fair hair, brown eyes and a beautiful face and body. She was unselfish/

popular/ loving, and lots of fun. She worked as a stenographer/ and a very good one

for the Western Moline Plow Co., where she met William Haywood Westwood whom

she married February 5, 1920. Before her marriage she also worked as a secretary

for the National Copper Bank. .

Her husband had studied commercial art and served in the Army during World War 1. He worked as a bookkeeper, salesman, and was a mailclerk at the U.S. Post Office when he died of a heart attack April 6, 1941.

William H. and Gladys Barker Westwood had four children: Wayne, who died six hours after premature birth; Dale, Viola Lucile, and Ralph William Westwood.

Her husband's widowed and ailing mother, Annie Haywood Westwood/ lived with the

family at the time when Gladys was bearing children. Gladys died of pneumonia

; .June 31, 1930. She was a gifted and loving mother. She wrote a story of her grand-

i mother, Margaret Condie Sharp, published in the January, 1927 issue of Correct

Eating, national health magazine, which reflected many of Gladys¹ own ideas. It is an able life sketch.

The writer of this sketch, Gladys¹ youngest brother/ Clarence Sharp Barker/ had left for South Africa to fill a mission when Dale/ Gladys¹ oldest child, was still small-enough to go inside his uncle's large suitcase. South Africa in the thirties was one month away from Salt Lake City by mail. He received a letter full of love and faith • from Gladys only shortly before getting the sad word by cable and telegram of Gladys" death.

*

Her example and heritage were priceless jewels. - ~'~. ~.~.••-.«-

8

Submitted by Ruth Barker, 2010