DIANTHA HANCHETT
Diantha Hanchett was born on October 18, 1830 in Erie, Erie County, Pennsylvania to Elam Martin Hanchett and Sarah Meacham. Her parents joined with the Mormon Church and began their trek west. Her mother died in 1840 in Illinois and her father died in 1844 in Missouri.
Diantha married Elias Gardner, his fourth of eight wives, on November 19, 1847 in Manti, Utah. She was seventeen years old. She had her first child, Betsy Ann, and was expecting her second baby when her husband received his mission call to England.
Elias was gone for three years, during which time Diantha had her baby, who was named Sarah Diantha, on Sept 9, 1852. Diantha provided for herself and her daughters by making candles and soap. She taught her daughters how to dip candles and gather salaratus up in the canyons for the soap, which she made from beef fat.
After her daughters moved to Arizona, Diantha kept in touch by writing letters. When she was an old woman and had no one in Utah to care for her, she came to live with Sarah and Dode Curtis on their ranch near St. David in Arizona.
Grandma Gardner, as she was called, could tell fortunes with tea leaves and she related the most fascinating stories of unheard of places and things. The children clamored around her to have their fortunes told. After slowly drinking her tea, she turned the cup upside down and let it remain for a few minutes. Then, saying a few strange words while she rotated the tea cup, she righted it carefully and studied the leaves spilled out on the table, and the few left in the cup. Whether Grandma Gardner believed she had the Power or whether she felt the Power in the tea leaves, no one really knew, but her fortunes often came true. When her grand daughter Clara was about nine, Grandma Gardner first told Clara about a dark, handsome man who would be coming into her life. Grandma Garner fitted into the work on the Curtis Ranch, helping with the quilting, the soap making, cording the wool, making the straw hats, and she was loved and seemed happy to be needed. The fortune that Grandma Gardner told to young Clara later helped her decide to marry the tall, dark, handsome man, the son of the stake president, instead of another.
As Grandma Gardner became older, she had to be constantly watched. She would pull her chamber pot out from under her bed, turn it upside down, and methodically tear up and roll small pieces of paper together and place them in a pile on the top of the pot and light a match to the little mound and intently watch the flames as they caught hold and began to blaze.
Grandma Gardner died peacefully in her sleep on November 17, 1902 at the Curtis Ranch near St. David and was buried a couple of days later near Marilla in the St. David graveyard.