HARRIET LOUISA BREWER
Harriet Louisa Brewer, known as Hattie, was born March 13, 1872 to Jacob Brewer and Sabra Ann Follett in Big Cottonwood, Salt Lake County, Utah. She spent her childhood in Virgin City, Utah. They migrated to Arizona in a covered wagon when Hattie was nine, settling in Pinedale. Her mother, Aunt Ann, as she was called, was the town nurse and midwife, so the responsibilities of the house fell heavily upon Hattie. Hattie married her school teacher's brother, Henry Utilis Russell, and the couple moved to Springerville. Henry was called on a mission to Kansas. Before leaving he took his wife and children to St. George to be sealed. Hattie learned the art of dressmaking, she sold many bridal dresses and made many burial suits for men and women. She was also expert at knitting with yarn from her own spindle.
Hattie's parents were a great comfort to her throughout her life, especially during the absence of Henry. While he was gone they moved south of Safford to homestead. Life was hard in the new country, they lived in a covered wagon and a tent for a few years.
Hattie was an ardent church worker, serving in the Relief Society and Primary and she taught her eleven children the gospel, to have a love for education and to make something of themselves.
In her last years Hattie lived in Mesa in a little house on Perkins Lane, very close to the temple. She did a lot of genealogy and saved her meager income for a trip to Connecticut to gather family names.
According to her son, Fred, "Hattie was a beautiful woman of medium height, trim in stature with kind blue eyes, fair skin and honey hair. Her dominant traits were, number one, supreme patience, she was understanding, tolerant but persevering in pursuit of what to her was life's highest goals. She was industrious, courageous and tenacious. She was gifted with wisdom and good common sense. She believed the key to life's treasures was to get a good education, an accomplishment that neither she nor any of her family in those frontier days had an opportunity to obtain. Her enthusiasm in the achievement of this goal was contagious, the infection spread to more or less dominate the lives of her children."
Hattie's grand daughter Elaine said of her, "Grandma Russell looked almost like my grandma Nelson. She was a big lady, she always wore a dress and an apron and she had thick grey hair which was sparkling. She liked to do genealogy. She was a funny lady. You would start talking to her and you would just laugh and laugh, she was a person who liked to tell jokes. She really had a great testimony of the gospel. She liked to talk about the church and about keeping the commandments."
Hattie died in Phoenix on March 23, 1964 at the age of 93 and was buried in the Mesa Cemetery after a large funeral.