Ann (Quarmby) Luce (1842 - 1904)

Born 20 Jan 1842 in Ashton-under-Lyne, Lancashire, England

Ancestors

Wife of Williams Washington Camp — married 24 Feb 1857 (to Jan 1858) in Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah Territory

Wife of Wilford Woodruff Luce Sr. — married 1862 in Salt Lake City, Salt Lake County, Utah

Descendants

Died 17 Jun 1904 at age 62 in Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah, United States

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Ann became a member of the LDS Church between 1830 - 1848.

Ann (Quarmby) Luce was a Latter Day Saint pioneer.

Biography

Ann (Anna, Annie) Quarmby.^[1]

Born 20 Jan 1842 (age 9 in 1850, 30 in 1870, 39 in 1880, 60 in 1900). Ashton-under-Lyne, Lancashire, England.^[2]

Immigration: Jun 1845. New Orleans, Orleans Parish, Louisiana.^[3] 2 Oct 1847. Salt Lake City, Salt Lake County, Utah.^[4][5]

Census: 1851 Salt Lake County, Utah.^[6][7] 1870 6th Ward, Salt Lake City, Salt Lake County, Utah. 1880 South Cottonwood, Salt Lake County, Utah.^[8][9] Jun 1900. Abbey Pct, Fremont County, Wyoming.^[10]

Marriage Husband Williams Washington Camp. Wife Ann (Anna, Annie" Quarmby. Marriage Feb 1857. Salt Lake City, Salt Lake County, Utah.^[11] Divorced: Jan 1858.

Husband Wilford Woodruff "Will" Luce. Wife Ann (Anna, Annie" Quarmby. Marriage 1862 Salt Lake City, Salt Lake County, Utah.^[12][13][14] Child: Clara Emma Luce. Child: Wilford Woodruff "Will" Luce. Child: Frank Luce. Child: Ann Eliza "Nan" Luce. Child: Mary Elizabeth Luce. Child: David Wheeler Luce. Child: Harriet Marie "Hat" Luce. Child: Louisa "Lola" Luce.

Died 17 Jun 1904, of senile pneumonia. Salt Lake City, Salt Lake County, Utah.^[15][16][17]

Buried 19 Jun 1904. Salt Lake City Cemetery, Salt Lake County, Utah.^[18][19][20]

Notes

She was a dressmaker. Her parents died when she was a child. Mormon bishop Joseph Bates Noble adopted her and took her to Utah with his family. The «i»Mormon Pioneer Overland Travel Database«i» says, "She was the orphan daughter of John and Elizabeth Quarmsby who was adopted by Joseph B. Noble".

The only memory Annie had of her parents was a steamer trunk with the name "Quarmby" engraved on the handle, which her parents brought from England. This trunk remained in the possession of the Noble family when Annie left home, and repeated attempts by her descendants to retrieve it have failed (Marker). In 1980 it was in the possession of Delbert Noble, of Woods Cross, Utah.^[21]

Annie was not sure of her age, her birthdate, or even her parents' names. She used four different dates as her birthdate, all of them birthdates of her childhood friends (Marker). The dates included 2 May 1841, 15 October 1841, and 22 June 1840, and 2 August 1842. LDS Ancestral File calls her Annie Quamby and says she was born 2 May 1841. Pedgree Resource File says she was Anna Quarmby, born 22 June 1840. She seems to have settled on 22 June 1840, the date given on her death certificate and in the «i»Mormon Pioneer Overland Travel Database«/i».

She knew that her birth name was Quarmby. She thought her father was William or John and that her mother might have been Elizabeth (Marker). Annie's death certificate gives her father's name as John Quamsby, which indicates at the time of her death this was the prevailing belief in the family. Growing up, she used the surname of her foster father, Joseph Noble. Her death certificate gives her name as Annie Noble Luce. Noble is also given as her maiden name in some of the marriage and death records of her children.

She was certainly born in England, as she herself believed. However, her son Wilford told his children she was Irish. A favorite song of hers and her husband's - which might have given her son that impression - was "Pity the poor Irish stranger who's wandered so far from his home".^[22] Annie had the bright red hair common among the Irish.^[23], and this might have fostered the notion. However, red hair is also common in northern England. Mormon missionaries were in northern England (Preston) from 1837 but did not reach Ireland until much later. Moreover, her son might have taken the story only half seriously: on the 1910 census he stated that his mother was born in "Wales England."

Her grandson James Marker conducted a research project between 1965 and 1969 to trace Annie's parents. After Markers' death in 1980, his research notes appear to have been lost, but it should be possible to re-construct Marker's research on this family based on the following notes made by Justin Swanström in 1974.

Marker believed that Annie was almost certainly the daughter of John Quarmby, a Seventy who died at Nauvoo in September 1845. There is no reason to doubt the connection. Annie's unknown parents must have been Mormons. The only other Quarmby in early Mormon records was William Henry Quarmby, about whom nothing further is known.

Marker examined the 1841 and 1851 censuses for every Quarmby family in England under all alternate spellings of the name. He was able to eliminate the families that appear on both censuses because Annie's parents must have emigrated before the 1851 census.

Marker identified the John and Ann Quarmby who appear on the 1841 census at Ashton-under-Lyne, Lancashire as Annie's probable parents. This couple had two surviving children William and Elizabeth, which might be why Annie remembered those names. Moreover, they lived at Ashton-under-Lyne near Preston, the center of Mormon missionary activity in England. Marker researched vital records as well, and identified other children and possible children of this couple, including a daughter Ann born 20 January 1842. Probably, he thought, this was Annie.

Marker thought, with far less certainty, that John and Ann Quarmby of Ashton-under-Lyne were the John Quarmby and Ann Wagstaff who were married at Huddersfield (Yorkshire) in 1821.

The only other candidates for Annie's parents found by Marker were John Quarmby (born 1777) and and his wife Elizabeth Stead or Stedd (born 1781), who likewise appear in English vital records at the proper times. They were married in 1802 at Rothwell (Yorkshire), and appear on the 1841 census at Almondbury (Yorkshire). Marker thought they were perhaps too old to have been Annie's parents. Recent research shows they could not have been Annie's parents: they were still in England in 1851, living in the Workhouse at Huddersfield.

Annie's subsequent life is well documented. Her parents converted to Mormonism shortly after she was born. They emigrated to America in June 1845 through the Port of New Orleans, settling at Nauvoo. Her father died in Nauvoo the following September, and her mother apparently died 1846/47, perhaps at Winter Quarters, Nebraska.

After her mother's death, Annie was adopted by Joseph Bates Noble and his wife Mary Adeline Beman, who took her to Utah. Annie's foster father had been Bishop of Nauvoo's 5th Ward. He performed the first recorded polygamous marriage among the Mormons: Joseph Smith to Noble's sister-in-law Louisa Beman in 1841. Annie's foster mother was a sister-in-law of Joseph Smith, Erastus Snow, and later of Brigham Young.

Noble was in Nauvoo on 25 March 1846. On 6 November 1846 and 25 January 1847, he was in Winter Quarters at Florence, Nebraska, preparing to leave for the journey west.^[24]

He was appointed Captain of a Company of Ten in Jedediah Grant's Hundred. That is, he was to lead ten families across the plains. The company was organized at Elkhorn, Nebraska on 19 June 1847 («i»Journal History«i», 21 June 1847, 28-32). A roster of 171 company members was published in Mormons at the Missouri (187-88). The same list is found in the Utah Immigration Card Index 1847-1868. This list includes Anna Noble, age 5, born Montrose, Iowa, daughter of Joseph B. Noble. The list also includes her "mother" Mary A. Noble, age 36; "brothers" Edward A., age 6 (also recorded as having been born at Montrose, Iowa), and George P. age 3; and "sister" Susan, age 14.

Five-year-old Annie walked across the plains with the Noble company and arrived in Salt Lake City on 29 September 1847, in the first year of Mormon settlement there. Some others in the company, including Noble himself, arrived on 4 October 1847. They lived first at the Old Fort, in what is now Pioneer Park.

On 7 November 1847 Annie's foster father was appointed Bishop of the North Addition to the Old Fort. On 28 January 1848 he was involved in a dispute over who should pay for the two oxen (at each) used to pay Rasharo, east of Laramie, for redeeming other oxen. The cost was assessed in equal shares among Noble's Fifty, and Noble was appointed to collect the money.

When land in the Salt Lake Valley was divided in 1849, Joseph Bates Noble received the lot at the northwest corner of the intersection of 100 South and 200 East, Salt Lake City. Annie grew up there.

Annie was baptized 24 February 1851. Her foster mother died just 10 days earlier. Annie was subsequently raised by her "step-mother" Mary Ann Washburn until about 1857, when Mary Ann left Joseph Bates Noble and married Edwin Whiting.

She was listed on the 1851 census of Salt Lake in the household of her foster father and "step-mother": Joseph B. Nobles (46), farmer, born in Massachusetts; Mary Ann (26), born in Massachusetts; Edward (10), born in Iowa; Anna (9), born in Iowa; George (7), born in Iowa; Eliza (3), born in Deseret; Benjamin (2), born in Deseret; and Elizabeth (1), born in Deseret.^[25]

Annie remembered a difficult childhood. When she was a girl, her step-mother threw an iron at her, leaving a scar on Annie's forehead. She later told her children she could forgive, but she could never forget.^[26].

When Annie was 15 (about 1856) she ran away from home to avoid marrying her foster father as his polygamous 8th wife. She spent the first night in a wagon and woke up covered with a layer of snow.^[27]. At age 15 (1857) she married for the first time, becoming the fourth wife of 57-year-old polygamist Williams Washington Camp. She might have been a friend of one of Camp's younger daughters, Harriet; the two were the same age. She divorced Camp less than a year later, in January 1858, in the Office of the Church President. To support herself she took up dress making. To get started, she bought a dress that she cut apart to make a paper pattern.^[28].

She remarried about 1861 or 1862, as only wife of Wilford Woodruff Luce. No record of their marriage has been located. They were probably married in Salt Lake City's 13th Ward, where her husband Wilford Luce, her foster father Joseph Bates Noble, and her former husband Williams Camp were all living in 1860. Coincidentally, Annie's new father-in-law Stephen Luce had served on a mission near Annie's birthplace in 1840, two years before she was born. If they recognized the connection, it did not help Annie find her family.

Annie has not been located on the 1860 census of Utah, when she would have been divorced from Will Camp but not yet remarried to Will Luce. Her absence is curious.

Throughout 1862 her husband suffered legal problems as a result of his involvement in an assault on Territorial Governor John Dawson. He was sentenced to a year in the penitentiary in March 1862, but pardoned by the governor on 8 December 1862 and released from prison. Perhaps Annie and Wilford were married while he was in prison, or after his release.

Annie and her husband were endowed and sealed at Endowment House on 16 August 1869.

In 1870 the family was living in Salt Lake City's 6th Ward. They moved to South Cottonwood, now a part of Holladay, Utah, before 1874. In 1880 they were farming in South Cottonwood Canyon.

In 1897 Annie was certified by the Utah Semi-Centennial Commission as being one of the surviving pioneers of the Mormons' first year in the Salt Lake Valley. She received a gold Silver Jubilee pin and is recorded in Book of the Pioneers^[29]

She and her husband were in Wyoming in 1900, homesteading near their son, Will Jr. Litigation involving her husband's title to land in Wyoming mentions that she was a registered voter in Utah in 1900. It is not clear whether she became a naturalized citizen at some point of her life. Probably, the issue of her citizenship never arose.

She and her husband moved back into Salt Lake City in March 1904 to live with her daughter Harriett Marker at 418 East 800 South. She died of senile pneumonia in June 1904 and was buried two days later in the Marker Plot (Park 5) in City Cemetery. Her death certificate calls her Annie Noble Luce. Her obituary in Improvement Era mistakenly calls her Annie D. Luce. Her gravestone calls her Annie E. Luce.

An ongoing research effort for Mormon pioneers is reported at earlyLDS.com. Information (apparently) for Annie, taken from LDS records with citations, appears at http:/earlylds.comgetperson.php?personID=I16125&tree=Earlylds (visited June 7, 2011).

Sources

1. ↑ Marker 1973-1974.
2. ↑ Marker 1973-1974.
3. ↑ Marker 1973-1974.
4. ↑ Clawson 1897: 27.
5. ↑ Marker 1973-1974.
6. ↑ 1850 Census, Salt Lake City, Utah, 104B.
7. ↑ Marker 1973-1974.
8. ↑ 1880 Census, 274A.
9. ↑ Marker 1973-1974.
10. ↑ Marker 1973-1974.
11. ↑ Marker 1973-1974.
12. ↑ Marker 1973-1974.
13. ↑ Death record.
14. ↑ Source: #S216
15. ↑ Improvement Era, 7:809.
16. ↑ Death record.
17. ↑ Marker 1973-1974.
18. ↑ Cemetery record.
19. ↑ Death record.
20. ↑ Marker 1973-1974.
21. ↑ Noble 1980.
22. ↑ Leonard 1955.
23. ↑ Vivian Swanström 1974-1979.
24. ↑ Bennett 2004.
25. ↑ 1850 Census, Salt Lake City, Utah, 104B.
26. ↑ Leonard 1955.
27. ↑ Leonard 1955.
28. ↑ Leonard 1955.
29. ↑ Clawson 1897: 1:410.

• Bennett, Richard Edmond. Mormons at the Missouri: Winter Quarters, 1846-1852. University of Oklahoma Press, 2004.
• Cemetery record.
• Clawson, Spencer. Book of the Pioneers. Salt Lake City, 1897.
• Death record, Annie Noble Luce, Utah 705.
• Easton, Dr. Susan Ward, comp. Pioneers of 1847. [Brigham Young Univ., 1980]: p. 117 (Anna Noble, born 2 August 1842 in Montrose, Iowa).
• "Family Tree," database, FamilySearch (http://familysearch.org : modified 30 March 2017, 15:33), entry for Anna Quarmby(PID https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/4:1:KWJD-49C); contributed by various users.
• Improvement Era, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.
• Leonard, Ann Eliza (Nan). They Call Me "Ma". Los Angeles, 1955.
• Mormon Pioneer Overland Travel: Anna Noble.
• Personal communications, JoAnn Gibson to Justin Swanström (2002, 2006, 2011).
• Personal communications, James L. Marker (deceased) to Justin Swanström (1973-1974).
• Personal communication, Joseph M. Noble to Justin Swanström (1980).
• Personal communications, Vivian Luce Swanstrom (deceased) to Justin Swanström (1971-1979).
• U.S. Census, Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah, 1850.
• U.S. Census, Salt Lake City, Salt Lake, Utah, 1880.