Margaret Elzirah Frost

Margaret Elzirah Frost was born April 28, 1830 in Knoxville, Tennessee to McCaslin and Pennina Jane Smith Frost.

History

Margaret's early life is unknown. Samuel, Margaret's oldest brother, while on a trip to secure work up north was introduced to missionaries of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Samuel was later converted to the Church and brought the newfound religion to his family who were also converted, along with their neighbors, the Bright family. Sometime before 1840, the Frost family moved to Jefferson County, Iowa. When Margaret was 12, she finally joined the Church and was baptized by her older brother Samuel in 1842.

While in Iowa, she was able to help mend and sew torn clothing. Margaret married Havery M. Rawlins on Dec 3, 1846 in Nishnabotna, Missouri. Margaret write,

"I was married very young and when our first baby was about three weeks old my husband and I left our parents and families and our home in Nauvoo and started west with the Andrew Cunningham Company of ten. I rode in the wagon which carried our supplies. It was pulled by four oxen. A pig pen was built on the back of the wagon and there was a chicken coop built on top of it. At night they chained the pigs to the wagon wheel and the chickens were turned out to pick around. Then they would hop back in their coop to roost. The old hens laid their eggs every day and they were seldom ever broken from the shaking of the wagon. Our bed was a homemade one. It stood in the back end of the wagon. I made my bed every day and tided up my corner of the wagon. 

"I had a little rocking chair which sat in the front corner of the wagon. I sat and held the baby most of the time because she was very cross and cried a lot. My husband walked most of the time and drove the oxen and cattle. We milked our cow every day and strained the cream into the churn which stood in the other corner of the wagon. The jarring of the wagon churned it to butter, We had butter all the way across the plains which was quite a luxury for us. 

We were never troubled by the Indians nor did we ever have a stampede. to bother us. There was one baby born on the Platt River, he was called Platt Lyman."

They arrived in the Salt Lake Valley on Oct 12, 1848. It is not clear as to what they did in the valley while they lived there, but they would later move to Big Cottonwood, Utah and Draper, Utah. In the 1860's, the Rawlins moved to Richmond. They lived there up until 1871 when they moved to Lewiston, Utah.

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