Rebecca Neibaur Nibley
Rebecca Neibaur Nibley, a member of the General Board of Relief Society, and wife of Bishop Charles W. Nibley, was born in the dawn of Utah's history, 30 March 1851, in Salt Lake City, Utah. Her father, Alexander Neibaur, was the first man of Jewish blood to enter the waters of baptism in this dispensation. He was the friend of the Prophet Joseph Smith, as of Pres. Brigham Young and the other great and good men and women who composed the founders of the Church. He taught the Prophet Joseph the German and Hebrew languages. He was a great and good man. Her mother, Ellen Breakel, was of English birth, and the parents had emigrated to Nauvoo in the brightest period of that beautiful city's history. With the body of the Church they came West to make new homes in the forbidding valleys of the Wasatch, and their children were born into the common heritage of pioneer poverty and struggle. Rebecca remembers vividly the grasshopper devastation, and the food scarcity that followed. Bran bread was bread if only there was enough of it. Hungry children are not easily satisfied, yet these were taught not to murmur, nor to be dependent on anyone but themselves and their Heavenly Father. Privation and hardship often dulls the senses; yet it sometimes quickens the faith; these pioneers were of the stock that never turns back when once the plough handle has been grasped. When the general move South came in 1858, owing to the entrance into the valleys of Johnson's army, Rebecca was a small child, but she helped to drive the pigs down, much to her dismay. Her memory is still crowded with the scenes of incidents of that sojourn in the southern city of Provo, where most of the saints camped for a short time.
She was baptized 30 March 1859, on the anniversary of her birthday, in City Creek, just above the Kimball mill, by John Woolley. That day, by the way, has been a red-letter day — or otherwise — for Rebecca Nibley. Many events have happened to mark her life's course on that fateful day. Rebecca Neibaur was a keen-witted, sunny-dispositioned, lively, magnetic, popular girl, with a host of friends and many admirers. She was "Beck" to her friends and they numbered nearly all the city, while she is still "Aunt Beck" to her numerous friends today. She was gay, full of repartee and laughter, and was good company as that phrase went. She was never worsted in an argument or found beaten in any sort of wordy skirmish; with her own colors flying and banners aloft, her witty sallies left her antagonists behind her silenced and dismayed. She had small schooling at books and schools, but what she lacked in pedagogical knowledge she amply made up in native intelligence and quick apprehension. Her intellect is of the practical order, yet keen to a reaper’s point in that quick comprehension which makes the men and women of today self-made.
Withal, this brilliant girl was filled to the brim with a burning testimony of the truth of the gospel bequeathed to her by her devoted parents. She knew to the core of her heart that Joseph Smith was a Prophet of God, and nothing ever so filled her soul with joy as to hear that testimony borne by another, or to voice it herself. That testimony has never left her, nor been overlaid with the cares of home life, the joys of travel, or the pleasures of society. To labor for the cause of Truth, in whatever field her powers and calling may lie, is still the greatest happiness known to this faithful woman. Rebecca was present and stood near Pres. Brigham Young when he drove the last spike in the Utah Central Railroad on 10 January 1870, she being in the capital on a visit from Brigham City. The girl was assisting her sister, Mrs. Morris Rosenbaum, at Brigham City, in the large boarding house which that thrifty Hebrew, Mr. Rosenbaum, kept for the men who were engaged in the final work on the railroads. There sat at the boarding table such men as Collis P. Huntingdon, 0. J. Salisbury, Col. Grey, Col. Kurd, with Gov. Leland Stanford, and many others not so well known, but of local repute. The merry-voiced girl was popular with all the boarders, and she received an offer of marriage, which was repeated at sundry and several occasions from one of the men just mentioned. But Beck Neibaur was a Mormon, first, last, and all the time. Her suitors offered her gold, houses, residence away from her people, etc., upon which the girl arose to her small height and announced her loyalty to her father, her faith, and her people. She was not again molested on that point.
Gov. Stanford had marked well the swift-footed, capable, careful, baby-loving, prudent girl, and he entreated her on numerous occasions to accept a position in his family as companion to his children. He, too, painted rosy pictures of life away from her people and in the great world west of the Valley, but Beck had built her house upon the rock. When the winds came and the storms of entreaty tried to batter down her citadel, her roottree never shook, her knees never faltered. It might be threats, it might be coaxing, but the girl simply tossed them all aside as things of no moment. She was a Mormon, and she would marry one of her own people or no one. And when she was rallied by Gov. Stanford on the possibility of being the wife of a man who would take other wives, she answered decisively, "Sir, I would not marry a man who had not the courage of his convictions, and who would not enter into that celestial order of marriage." On 30 March 1869, — fateful day — she was married in the old Endowment House, by Pres. Daniel H. Wells, to Charles Wilson Nibley, a young and promising Scotchman, already an important figure among the young men of northern Utah. The young couple married and moved to Brigham City, where they lived for four years, and where their first two children were born, and the little girl died. From there they moved to Logan in 1873, remaining there for 20 years, and then moved to Baker City, Oregon in 1893. While living there Sister Nibley was chosen president of the first Relief Society organized in that State, 30 March 1396; she filled the position for seven years and then moved to Salt Lake City in 1903.
Mrs. Nibley is the mother of ten children: four girls and six boys. All her living children were married in the temple. The sons have filled missions and are active men in their various fields of endeavor. She has buried two children in Logan, and one in Brigham City. Her husband entered into the celestial order of marriage, his first marriage occurring on that fateful date of 30 March 1880. Before this, however, Elder Nibley went on a mission to England, leaving her with two children. She had a piece of hay land, a cow, some chickens, and a pig; and like the brave woman she was, she managed, by carefully husbanding her resources, to get through with the whole term without contracting one cent of debt. In fact, when he returned, the three hundred dollars which had been paid the little wife on a debt owed her husband was still hidden in the clock where it had reposed untouched since its receipt. During that time, the young wife took care of her own garden, planted, harrowed, hoed and harvested her vegetables and fruits, even growing her own winter potatoes.
Since the blessing of prosperity has visited their home Sister Nibley has taken many pleasant and profitable trips both east and west. She has been to California several times, and has traveled to Europe three times. She was at the Salt Lake and Logan Temple dedications, has worked for her dead in both temples, and was at the dedication of the Canadian Temple site in June 1913.
When she removed to Salt Lake City in 1903, she located in her present comfortable home opposite the Temple Block to the west. Soon after this (October 1909) she was placed upon the General Board of the Relief Society, which position she still occupies to the credit of herself and the great benefit of that body of women. One of her important activities is her chairmanship of the committee for the Relief Society Home, as general manager and active head of that splendid institution. She is also at present a member of the Relief Society advisory and finance committee. All in all, she is a woman of good executive ability, of pleasing presence, with much latent talent which only lacked opportunity to develop into wider fields of activity. She is hospitable, a delightful traveling companion, prudent and economical, with a broad charity which is exercised in secret, but is nonetheless generous and tender, a true friend, a faithful mother, an obedient and loyal wife, and above all, a saint who knows and lives the gospel according to the light that is within her. Her children show much of their mother's charm and vitality, while her friends know her worth and love her for her noble prudence and her wide sympathy. (Information taken from Latter-day Saint Biographical Encyclopedia, Volume 2, by Andrew Jenson, published 1914, pages 675-678.)