1836-1911 Mary Ellen Wood

Mary Ellen Wood (Allsop)

Mary Ellen Wood (1836-1911)

--Susannah Allsop (1858-1883)

----Martha Mildred Ormond (1878-1968)

------Kenneth O Kingsford (1904-1927)

--------Earl Kingsford (1936-)

----------Bryan Earl Kingsford (1959-)

(Taken from Thomas and Sylvia Allsop: Family History written by Sid and Louise Allsop.

Originally written by Effie Allsop Green. Additional information from the internet (http://members.aol.com/HConor/johnira.htm)

Background Information

Mary Ellen Wood was baptized on 17 February 1837 at St. Nicholas Parish, Liverpool, Lancashire, England when she was a little baby. She met her future husband John Allsop, son of Ira Absolom Allsop and Mary Ann Cressey when she acted as a nurse to his wife Susannah Robbins. John Allsop and his wife Susannah Robbins were traveling aboard the ship The Marshfield to the United States.

They hired another passenger on the ship, Mary Ellen Wood, as a nurse to Susannah, who was pregnant with twins at the time. She helped with their delivery- Marshfield and George Allsop. Both died and were buried at sea. Later, the ship docked at New Orleans, Louisiana.

While on the trip to Utah, Susannah died on August 6, 1854. John arrived in Salt Lake County and married Mary Ellen Wood on September 12, 1854. Together they had eleven children. The first three of their eleven children were born in Bountiful in Davis County: John Ira, Mary Ellen, and Susanna. They had moved closer to the Idaho border, (Richmond, Cache County) by 1861, where the balance of their children were born; Charles, William Henry, Thomas, Alice, Elizabeth, Joseph, Hyrum, and Reuben.

Biography as told by her daughter, Effie Allsop Green.

I remember grandmother first as a Primary President. When she lived at Richmond, Utah, I loved to go to her home; she had so many pretty ornaments, vases, dishes of a novelty nature, and one especially, a beautiful Madoni [Madonna] which stood 1 1/2 feet high. I used to love to look at this and dream of Mary, the Mother of Christ, and her child.

Grandmother was Primary President of the Richmond Ward for about 15 years. She must have been exceptionally good at the work, for many times during my church work as Stake President of the Relief Society in Benson Stake, I was told by men and women who were once her Primary children, that she was indeed an influence for good in their lives. Sometimes I felt as though I was riding along on her fame.

In her later years, she left Utah and moved to Gentile Valley, Idaho, where her children lived. She died at Turner, Idaho, April 18, 1911 and was buried at Richmond, Utah, beside her husband on the 21st of the same month. She lived at one time with us, or in an apartment in our house at Thatcher, Idaho. She loved to go to Church, and I can remember her so well when she used to bear her testimony in fast meeting.

I used to love to go into her room. Sometimes she would tell me a story, or tell me about a book she had read.

One day she told me this story about herself. It was a cold, snowy, frosty day and she was president of Primary. There was no janitor to care for the church house, so when it came time for Primary, she had to gather kindling wood from her own meager pile and carry it to the church, which was about three blocks and start a fire to warm the house for Primary. She was terribly discouraged because of her duties at home, being a widow, and having to take the part of father as well as mother to her family. She deemed it all a task which was too big for her to carry.

Just as she was breaking the wood to start the fire, a window from across the room was raised and the head and shoulders of a man appeared in the window. He called her to him and told her how much good she was doing among the children in the ward and promised her that she should be blessed with the necessities of life and health and strength to perform her duties.

She said that she did not stop to consider whom she was talking to at the time, but after the fire was burning, and she had time to pause, she was really bewildered. So she went outside to see if she could see anyone nearby, and she noted that there were not even footprints in the new fallen snow anywhere leading to the window. To grandmother, it was definitely one of the Three Nephites who had paid her a visit and left with her an influence that was most consoling and uplifting.

As I remember her, she was spiritually minded and faithful to her convictions. She loved a party, she loved a joke, and she loved to laugh; and like Santa Claus, she had a little round belly that shook when she laughed like a bowl full of jelly. I can almost hear her singing now- "In Our Lovely Deseret, Where the Saints of God have met, Drink no liquor and they eat but very little meat. Tea and coffee and tobacco they despise..."

A few observations by the editor (Sharron Allsop-Day):

Based on dates I found from the internet, Mary Ellen was baptized a member of the church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints twelve years after her mother died and two years after her father died, which leads me to believe that she was converted as a young single woman on her own and made the decision to come to Salt Lake City to be with the Saints, also on her own.

Mary Ellen Wood was eighteen years old when she married John Allsop who was thirteen years her senior. He had already been married twice before, which meant that she was his third wife. They were married shortly after arriving in Salt Lake Valley on September 12, 1854.

They had been married for less than thirteen years when John Allsop took a second polygamous wife, Johanna Marie Eskildsen (his fourth wife). By all accounts, Mary Ellen was very generous and supportive of Johanna. But as I was looking at some dates, I found some of them very interesting simply because of their timing.

For example, take the timing of John's marriage to Johanna Eskildsen. Mary Ellen had just given birth to her seventh child (March 1, 1867) and eleven days later, her husband took a second wife (March 12,1867) who was fourteen years younger than she was.

That meant that she was pregnant with their seventh child all during her husband's courtship of another woman. She had just given birth, when her husband married a far younger, and probably more attractive woman (simply because of her youth). I wonder what that felt like for her.

Mary Ellen out-lived her husband by thirty-five years. As I looked at the birth dates of their children and did the math, I realized that she would have been left with at least eight children still in the home to raise because eight of her children were under the age of fifteen at his death. That means that she raised her children pretty much by herself. I wonder what she did to earn a living to support them because no mention is made of it.

It was when I started thinking about what her life must have been like that the story of the messenger of the Lord, mortal or not, who came to tell her how much good she was doing, must have given a great deal of comfort to her. It is a testimony to me that the Lord knows each of us, is aware of each of us, and loves each of us.

This is one of the women in our ancestry that I would like to meet.